Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates [microform] : with scientific elucidations

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

ASPECTS OF NATURE,

IN

DIFFERENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES;

WITH

ISlucftaticns.

BY

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT,

TRANSLATED BY MRS. SABINE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

£

>

1 *•*

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS

PATERNOSTER ROW; AND

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1849.

v \

qni

AUTHOR'S PREFACE V.I

TO THE

FIKST EDITION.

IT h not without diffidence that I present to the public a
series of papers which took their origin in the presence of
natural scenes of grandeur or of beauty, — on the pcean, in
the forests of the Orinoco, in the Steppes of Venezuela,
and in the mountain wildernesses of Peru and Mexico.
Detached fragments were written down on the spot and at
the moment, and were afterwards moulded into a whole.
The view of Nature on an enlarged scale, the display of the
concurrent action of various forces or powers, and the
renewal of the enjoyment which the immediate prospect of
tropical scenery affords to sensitive minds, are the objects
which I have proposed to myself, According to the design
of my work, whilst each of the treatises of which it consists
should form a whole complete in itself, one common
tendency should pervade them all. Such an artistic and
VOL. i. b

V1U PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

literary treatment of subjects of natural history is liable to
difficulties of composition, notwithstanding the aid which it
derives from the power and flexibility of our noble language.
The unbounded riches of Nature occasion an accumulation
of separate images ; and accumulation disturbs the repose
and the unity of impression which should belong to the
picture. Moreover, when addressing the feelings and
imagination, a firm hand is needed to guard the style from
degenerating into an undesirable species of poetic prose.
But I need not here describe more fully dangers which
I fear the following pages will shew I have not always
succeeded in avoiding.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding faults which I can more
easily perceive than amend, T venture to hope that these
descriptions of the varied Aspects which Nature assumes in
distant lands, may impart to the reader a portion of that
enjoyment which is derived from their immediate contem-
plation by a mind susceptible of such impressions. As this
enjoyment is enhanced by insight into the more hidden
connection of the different powers and forces of nature,
I have subjoined to each treatise scientific elucidations and
additions.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IX

Throughout the entire work I have sought to indicate
the unfailing influence of external nature on the feelings,
the moral dispositions, and the destinies of man. To minds
oppressed with the cares or the sorrows of life, the soothing
influence of the contemplation of nature is peculiarly
precious; and to such these pages are more especially
dedicated. May they, "escaping from the stormy waves
of life/' follow me in spirit with willing steps to the recesses
of the primeval forests, over the boundless surface of the
Steppe, and to the higher ridges of the Andes. To them
is addressed the poet's voice, in the sentence of the
Chorus —

" Auf den Bergen ist Ereiheit ! Der Hauch der Griifte
Steigt nicht hinauf in die reinen Ltifte ;
Die Welt ist vollkommen iiberaU,
Wo der Mensch nicht hinkommt mit seiner QuaL"

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.

THE twofold aim of the present work (a carefully prepared
and executed attempt to enhance the enjoyment of Nature by
animated description, and at the same time to increase in
proportion to the state of knowledge at the time the reader's
insight into the harmonious and concurrent action of different
powers and forces of Nature) was pointed out by me nearly
half a century ago in the Preface to the Eirst Edition. In
so doing, I alluded to the various obstacles which oppose a
successful treatment of the subject in the manner designed.
The combination of a literary and of a purely scientific
object, — the endeavour at once to interest and occupy the
imagination, and to enrich the mind with new ideas by the
augmentation of knowledge, — renders the due arrangement
of the separate parts, and the desired unity of composition,
difficult of attainment. Yet, notwithstanding these dis-

Xll PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.

advantages, the public have long regarded my imperfectly
executed undertaking with friendly partiality.

The second edition of the " Ansichten der Natur" was
prepared by me in Paris in 1826 ; and at the same time two
fresh treatises were added, — one an Essay on the Structure
and mode of Action of Yolcanoes in different regions of the
earth ; and the other on the " Vital Power," bearing the
title " Lebenskraft, oder der rhodische Genius." During
my long stay at Jena, Schiller, in the recollection of his
youthful medical studies, loved to converse with me on
physiological subjects ^ and the considerations in which I
was then engaged on the muscular and nervous fibres when
excited by contact with chemically different substances, often
gave a more specific and graver turn to our discourse. The
" Ehodian Genius" was written at this time : it appeared
first in Schiller's ' ' Horen," a periodical journal ; and it was
his partiality for this little work which encouraged me to
allow it to be reprinted. My brother, in a letter forming
part of a collection which has recently been given to the
public (Wilhelm von Humboldt's Briefe an eine Preundin,
Th. ii. S. 39), touches tenderly on the subject of the memoir
in question, but adds at the same time a very just remark :

PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS. Xlll

" The development of a physiological idea is the object of
the entire treatise ; men were fonder at that time than they
would now be of such semi-poetic clothing of severe scientific
truths."

In my eightieth year, I am still enabled to enjoy the
satisfaction of completing a third edition of my work, re-
moulding it entirely afresh to meet the requirements of the
present time. Almost all the scientific Elucidations or
Annotations have been either enlarged or replaced by new
and more comprehensive ones. I have hoped that these
volumes might tend to inspire and cherish a love for the
study of Nature, by bringing together in a small space the
results of careful observation on the most varied subjects ;
by showing the importance of exact numerical data, and the
use to be made of them by well-considered arrangement and
comparison ; and by opposing the dogmatic half-knowledge
and arrogant scepticism which have long too much prevailed
in what are called the higher circles of society.

The expedition made by Ehrenberg, Gustav Rose, and
myself, by the command of the Emperor of Kussia, in 1829,
to Northern Asia (in the Ural and Altai mountains, and on

£IV PREFACE TO THfi SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.

the shores of the Caspian Sea), falls between the period of
publication of the second and third editions. This expedi-
tion has contributed materially to the enlargement of my
views in all that regards the form of the surface of the earth,
the direction of mountain-chains, the connection of steppes
and deserts with each other, and the geographical distribution
of plants in relation to ascertained conditions of tempera-
ture. The long subsisting want of any accurate knowledge
on the subject of the great snow-covered mountain-chains
which are situated between the Altai and the Himalaya (t. e.
the Thian-schan and the Kuen-liin), and the ill-judged
neglect of Chinese authorities, have thrown great obscurity
around the geography of Central Asia, and have allowed
imagination to be substituted for the results of observation
in works which have obtained extensive circulation. In the
course of the last few months the hypsometrical comparison
of the culminating summits of the two continents has almost
unexpectedly received important corrections and additions, of
which I hasten to avail myself. (Vol. i. pp. 57-58,and 92-93.)
The determinations of the heights of two mountains in the
eastern chain of the Andes of Bolivia, the Sorata and the
Illimani, have been freed from the errors which had placed
those mountains above the Chimborazo, but without as yet

PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS. XV

altogether restoring to the latter with certainty its ancient
pre-eminence among the snowy summits of the New World.
In the Himalaya the recently executed trigonometrical
measurement of the Kinchinjinga (28178 English feet) places
it next in altitude to the Dhawalagiri, a new and more exact
trigonometrical measurement of which has also been recently
made.

For the sake of uniformity with the two previous editions
of the " Ansichten der Natur," I have given the degrees of
temperature in the present work (unless where expressly
stated otherwise) in degrees of Reaumur's scale. The linear
measures are the old French, in which the toise equals six
Parisian feet. The miles are geographical, fifteen to a degree
of the equator. The longitudes are reckoned from the
Observatory at Paris as a first meridian.

BERLIN, 1849.

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

IN the translation the temperatures are given in degrees of
Fahrenheit, retaining at the same time the original figures in
Reaumur's scale. In the same manner the measures are
given in English feet, generally retaining at the same time
the original statements in Parisian or French feet or toises, a
desirable precaution where accuracy is important. The miles
are given in geographical miles, 60 to a degree, but in this
case the original figures have usually been omitted, the con-
version being so simple as to render the introduction of error
very improbable. In a very few instances " English miles"
appear without any farther epithet or explanation; these
have been taken by the author from English sources, and
may probably signify statute miles. The longitudes from
Greenwich are substituted for those from Paris, retaining in
addition the original statement in particular cases.

CONTENTS.

MM

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION . vii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS . xi
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR . . . . . . xvii

STEPPES AND DESERTS . 1

Annotations and Additions ..... 27

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO . . . .- . . 207
Annotations and Additions . . . 233

NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST . 257
Annotations and Additions . 273

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA .277

For General Summary of the CONTENTS of the First Volume,

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

ASPECTS OF NATURE

DIFFERENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES.

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

A WIDELY extended and apparently interminable plain stretches
from the southern base of the lofty granitic crest, which, in
the youth of our planet, when the Caribbean gulf was formed,
braved the invasion of the waters. On quitting the moun-
tain valleys of Caraccas, and the island-studded lake of
Tacarigua (l) whose surface reflects the stems of plantains
and bananas, and on leaving behind him meads adorned
with the bright and tender green of the Tahitian sugar cane
or the darker verdure of the Cacao groves, the traveller,
looking southward, sees unroll before him Steppes receding
until they vanish in the far horizon.

Eresh from the richest luxuriance of organic life, he treads
at once the desolate margin of a treeless desert. Neither
hill nor cliff rises, like an island in the ocean, to break the
uniformity of the boundless plain ; only here and there

VOL. I. B

2 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

broken strata of limestone, several hundred square miles in
extent, appear sensibly higher than the adjoining parts.
" Banks" (2) is the name given to them by the natives ; as
if language instinctively recalled the more ancient condition
of the globe, when those elevations were shoals, and the
Steppes themselves were the bottom of a great Mediterranean
sea.

Even at the present time nocturnal illusion still recalls
these images of the past. When the rapidly rising and
descending constellations illumine the margin of the plain,
or when their trembling image is repeated in the lower
stratum of undulating vapour, we seem to see before us a
shoreless ocean. (3) Like the ocean, the Steppe fills the
mind with the feeling of infinity; and thought, escaping
from the visible impressions of space, rises to contemplations
of a higher order. Yet the aspect of the clear transparent
mirror of the ocean, with its light, curling, gently foaming,
sportive waves, cheers the heart like that of a friend ; but
the Steppe lies stretched before us dead and rigid, like the
stony crust (4) of a desolated planet.

In every zone nature presents the phenomena of these
great plains : in each they have a peculiar physiognomy,
determined by diversity of soil, by climate, and by elevation
above the level of the sea.

Tn northern Europe, the Heaths, which, covered with a
single race of plants repelling all others, extend from the
point of Jutland to the mouth of the Scheldt, may be re-
garded as true Steppes, — but Steppes of small extent and
hilly surface, if compared with the Llanos and Pampas of

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 3

South America, or even with the Prairies of the Missouri (5)
and the Barrens of the Coppermine river, where range
countless herds of the shaggy buffalo and musk ox.

A grander and severer aspect characterises the plains of
the interior of Africa. Like the wide expanse of the Pacific
Ocean, it is only in recent times that attempts have been
made to explore them thoroughly. They are parts of a sea
of sand, which, stretching eastward, separates fruitful regions
from each other, or encloses them like islands ; as where the
Desert, near the basaltic mountains of Harudsh, (6) surrounds
the Oasis of Siwah rich in date trees, and in which the ruins
of the temple of Ammon mark the venerable site of an
ancient civilisation. Neither dew nor rain bathe these
desolate plains, or develope on their glowing surface the
germs of vegetable life; for heated columns of air, every
where ascending, dissolve the vapours, and disperse each
swiftly vanishing cloud.

Where the Desert approaches the Atlantic Ocean, as be-
tween the Wadi Nun and Cape Blanco, the moist sea air
pours in to supply the void left by these upward currents.
The mariner, steering towards the mouth of the Gambia
through a sea covered with weed, when suddenly deserted
by the east trade wind of the tropics, (7) infers the vicinity
of the widely extended heat-radiating desert. Herds of ante-
lopes and swift-footed ostriches roam through these vast
regions; but, with the exception of the watered Oases or
islands in the sea of sand, some groups of which have
recently been discovered, and whose verdant shores are
frequented by nomade Tibbos and Tuaricks, (8) the African

4 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Desert must be regarded as uninhabitable by man. The
more civilised nations who dwell on its borders only venture
to enter it periodically. By trading routes, which have
remained unaltered for thousands of years, caravans traverse
the long distance from Tafilet to Timbuctoo, and from
Moorzouk to "Bornou; adventurous undertakings, the possi-
bility of which depends upon the existence of the camel,
the " ship of the desert/' (9) as it is called in the traditionary
language of the eastern world.

These African plains occupy an extent nearly three times
as great as that of the neighbouring Mediterranean sea.
They are situated partly within, and partly in the vicinity
of the tropics ; and on this situation their peculiar character
depends. In the eastern part of the old continent, the same
geognostic phenomenon occurs in the temperate zone. On
the plateaux of central Asia, between the gold mountains or
the Altai and the Kuen-lun, (10) from the Chinese wall to
beyond the Celestial mountains, and towards the sea of Aral,
there extend, through a length of many thousand miles, the
most vast, if not the most elevated, Steppes on the surface
of the globe. I have myself had the opportunity, fully
thirty years after my South American journey, of visiting a
portion of them ; namely, the Calmuck Kirghis Steppes be-
tween the Don, the Volga, the Caspian, and the Chinese
lake Dsaisang, being an extent of almost 2800 geographical
miles.

These Asiatic Steppes, which are sometimes hilly and
sometimes interrupted by pine forests, possess (dispersed
over tnem in groups) a far more varied vegetation than that

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of the Llanos and Pampas of Caraccas and Buenos Ayres.
The finest part of these plains, which is inhabited by Asiatic
pastoral tribes, is adorned with low bushes of luxuriant
white-blossomed Rosacese, and with Fritillarias, Tulips, and
Cypripedia|t

As the torrid zone is characterised on the whole by a dis-
position in all vegetation to become arborescent, so some of
the Asiatic Steppes in the temperate zone are charac-
terised by the great height attained by flowering herbaceous
plants, Saussureas and other Synantherse, and Papilionacese
especially a host of species of Astragalus. In traversing
pathless portions of these Steppes, the traveller, seated in
the low Tartar carriages, sees the thickly crowded plants
bend beneath the wheels, but without rising up cannot look
around him to see the direction in which he is moving.
Some of the Asiatic Steppes are grassy plains ; others are
covered with succulent, evergreen, articulated soda plants :
many glisten from a distance with flakes of exuded salt which
Cover the clayey soil, not unlike in appearance to fresh fallen
snow.

These Mongolian and Tartarian Steppes, interrupted fre-
quently by mountainous features, divide the very ancient
civilisation of Thibet and Hindostan from the rude nations
of Northern Asia. They have in various ways exercised an
important influence on the changeful destinies of man.
They have compressed the population towards the south,
and have tended, more than the Himalaya, or than the snowy
mountains of Srinagur and Ghorka, to impede the intercourse
of nations, and to place permanent limits to the extension

6 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of milder manners, and of artistic and intellectual cultivation
in northern Asia.

But, in the history of the past, it is not alone as an
opposing barrier that we must regard the plains of Central
Asia : more than once they have proved the source from
whence devastation has spread over distant lands. The
pastoral nations of these Steppes, — Moguls, Getse, Alani,
and Usuni,— have shaken the world. As in the course of
past ages, early intellectual culture has come like the
cheering light of the sun from the East, so, at a later period,
from the same direction barbaric rudeness has threatened
to overspread and involve Europe in darkness. A brown
pastoral race, (l l) of Tukiuish or Turkish descent, the Hiongnu,
dwelling in tents of skins, inhabited the elevated Steppe of
Gobi. Long terrible to the Chinese power, a part of this
tribe was driven back into Central Asia. The shock or im-
pulse thus given passed from nation to ' nation, until it
reached the ancient land of the Finns, near the Ural moun-
tains. From thence, Huns, Avari, Ghazar6s, and various
admixtures of Asiatic races, broke forth. Armies of Huns
appeared successively on the Yolga, in Pannonia., on the
Marne, and on the Po, desolating those fair and fertile
fields which, since the time of Antenor, civilised man had
adorned with monument after monument. Thus went
forth from the Mongolian deserts a deadly blast, which
withered on Cisalpine ground the tender long-cherished
flower of art.

From the salt Steppes of Asia, from the European Heaths
smiling in summer with their purple blossoms rich in honey,

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 7

and from the arid Deserts of Africa devoid of all vegetation,
let us now return to those South American plains of which
I have already began to trace the picture, albeit in rude
outlines.

The interest which this picture can offer to the beholder
is, however, exclusively that of pure nature. Here no
Oasis recalls the memory of earlier inhabitants ; no carved
stone, (12) no ruined building, no fruit tree once the care of
the cultivator but now wild, speaks of the art or industry of
former generations. As if estranged from the destinies of
mankind, and riveting attention solely to the present mo-
ment, this corner of the earth appears as a wild theatre for
the free development of animal and vegetable life.

The Steppe extends from the Caraccas coast chain to the
forests of Guiana, and from the snowy mountains of Merida
(on the slope of which the Natron Lake Urao is an object of
superstitious veneration to the natives,) to the great delta
formed by the Orinoco at its mouth. To the south-west
a branch is prolonged, like an arm of the sea, (13) beyond
the banks of the Meta and Vichada to the unvisited
sources of the Guaviare, and to the lonely mountain to
which the excited fancy of the Spanish soldiery gave the
name of Paramo de la Suma Paz — the seat of perfect peace.
This Steppe occupies a space of 16,000 (256,000 English)
square miles. It has often been erroneously described as
running uninterruptedly, and with an equal breadth, to the
straits of Magellan, forgetting the forest-covered plain of
the Amazons which intervenes between the grassy Steppes
of the Apure and those of the river Plate. The Andes of

8 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Cochabamba, and the Brazilian group of mountains, send
forth, between the province of Chiquitos and the isthmus
of Villabella, some detached spurs, which advance, as it
were, to meet each other. (14) A narrow plain connects
the forest lands of the Amazons with the Pampas of Buenos
Ayres. The latter far surpass the Llanos of Venezuela in
area ; and their extent is so great that while their northern
margin is bordered by palm trees, their southern extremity
is almost continually covered with ice.

The Tuyu, which resembles the Cassowary (the Struthio
rhea), is peculiar to these Pampas, which are also the haunt
of troops of dogs (15) descended from those introduced by the
colonists, but which have become completely wild, dwelling
together in subterranean hollows, and often attacking with
blood-thirsty rage the human race whom their progenitors
served and defended.

Like the greater portion of the desert of Sahara, (16) the
northernmost of the South American plains, the Llanos, are
in the torrid zone: during one half of the year they are
desolate, like the Lybian sandy waste ; during the other,
they appear as a grassy plain, resembling many of the Steppes
of Central Asia. (")

It is a highly interesting though difficult task of general
geography to compare the natural conditions of distant
regions, and to represent by a few traits the results of this
comparison. The causes which lessen both heat and dry-
ness in the New World (18) are manifold, and in some
respects as yet only partially understood. Amongst these
may be classed the narrowness and deep indentation of the

STEPPES AND DESEKTS. 9

American land in the northern part of the torrid zone, where
consequently the atmosphere, resting on a liquid base, does
not present so heated an ascending current ; — the extension
of the continent towards the poles ; — the expanse of ocean
over which the trade-winds sweep freely, acquiring thereby
a cooler temperature ; — the flatness of the eastern coasts ; —
currents of cold sea- water from the antarctic regions, which,
coming from the south-west to the north-east, first strike
the coast of Chili in the parallel of 35° south latitude, and
advance along the coast of Peru as far north as Cape Pariiia,
and then turn suddenly to the west ; — the numerous lofty
mountain chains rich in springs, and whose snow-clad sum-
mits, rising high above all the strata of clouds, cause
descending currents of cold air to roll down their declivities ;
— the abundance of rivers of enormous breadth, which, after
many windings, seek the most distant coast ; — Steppes which
from not being sandy are less susceptible of acquiring a high
degree of heat, — impenetrable forests occupying the alluvial
plains situated immediately beneath the equator, protecting
with their shade the soil beneath from the direct influence
of the sunbeams, and exhaling in the interior of the country
at a great distance from the mountains and from the ocean
vast quantities of moisture, partly imbibed and partly
elaborated : — all these circumstances afford to the flat part
of America a climate which by its humidity and coolness
contrasts wonderfully with that of Africa. It is to the same
causes that we are to attribute the luxuriant vegetation, the
magnificent forests, and that abundant leafiness by which
the new continent is peculiarly characterised.

10 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

If, therefore, one side of our planet has a moister atmo-
sphere than the other, the consideration of the present
condition of things is amply sufficient to explain the problem
presented by this inequality. The physical inquirer needs
not to clothe the explanation of these phenomena in a
mantle of geological myths. He needs not to assume that
on our planet the harmonious reconciliation of the destructive
conflict of the elements took place at different epochs in the
eastern and the western hemispheres ; or that America emerged
later than the other parts of the globe from the chaotic
watery covering, (19) as an island of swamps and marshes
tenanted by alligators and serpents.

There is, indeed, a striking similarity between South
America and the southern peninsula of the old continent in
the form of the outline and in the direction of the coasts;
but the nature of the soil, and the relative position of the
neighbouring masses of land, produce in Africa that extra-
ordinary aridity which over an immense area checks the
development of organic life. Four-fifths of South America
are situated on the southern side of the equator; or
in a hemisphere which from the greater proportion of sea
and from other causes is cooler and moister than our
northern half of the globe> (20) to which the larger part of
Africa belongs. The breadth of the South American Steppe,
measured from east to west, is only a third of that of the
African Desert. The Llanos receive the influence of the
tropical sea wind, while the African Deserts, being situated
in the same zone of latitude as Arabia and the south of
Persia, are in contact with strata of air which have blown

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 11

over warm heat-radiating continents. 7he venerable and
only lately appreciated father of .history, Herodotus, in
tne true spirit of an enlarged view of nature, described
the Deserts of northern Africa, of Yemen, of Kerman and
Mekran (the Gedrosia of the Greeks), and even as far as
Moultan, as forming a single connected sea of sand. (21)

In addition to the action of these hot winds, there is (so
far as we know) an absence or comparative paucity in Africa
of large rivers, of widely extended forests producing coolness
and exhaling moisture, and of lofty mountains. Of moun-
tains covered with perpetual snow, we know only the
western part of the Atlas, (22) whose narrow range, seen
in profile from the Atlantic, appeared to the ancient
navigators when sailing along the coast as a single
detached lofty sky-supporting mount. The eastern pro-
longation of the chain extends nearly to Dakul, where
Carthage, once mistress of the seas, now lies in mouldering
ruins. As forming a long extended coast-chain, or Gsetulian
rampart, the effect of the Atlas range is to intercept the cool
north breezes, and the vapours which ascend from the
Mediterranean.

The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel-al-Komr, (23)
(fabulously represented as forming part of a mountainous
parallel extending from the high plateaux of Habesh, an
African Quito, to the sources of the Senegal), were supposed
to rise above the limit of perpetual snow. The Cordillera
of Lupata, which extends along the eastern coast of
Mozambique and Monomotapa, as the Andes along the

12 STEPPES AND DESEETS.

western coast of Peru, is believed to be covered with per-
petual snow in the gold districts of Machinga and Mocanga.
But all these mountains, with the abundant waters to which
they give rise, are far remote from the immense Desert which
stretches from the southern declivity of the Atlas to the
Niger.

Possibly, however, all the causes of heat and dryness.
which have been enumerated may have been insufficient to
transform such considerable parts of the African plains into
a dreadful desert, without the concurrence of some revolution
of nature, — such, for instance, as an irruption of the ocean,
whereby these flat regions may have been despoiled of their
coating of vegetable soil, as well as of the plants which it
nourished. Profound obscurity veils the period of such an
event, and the force which determined the irruption. Perhaps
it may have been caused by the great " rotatory current"
(24) which sends the warmer water of the Mexican gulf over
the banks of Newfoundland and to the shores of the old
continent, and causes West India cocoa-nuts and other
tropical fruits to reach the coasts of Ireland and Norway.
There, is still at least at the present time, an arm of this
current directed from the Azores to the south-east, which
sometimes produces disasters by carrying ships upon the
west coast of Africa, which it strikes at a part lined by
sand-hills. Other sea coasts (I particularly recall that of
Peru between Amotape and Coquimbo) shew that in these
hot regions of the earth, where rain never falls and where
neither Lecideas nor other Lichens (25) germinate, centuries

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 33

and perhaps thousands of years may elapse before the
moveable sand can afford to the roots of plants a secure
holding place.

These considerations are sufficient to explain why, with
an external similarity of form, Africa and South America
present so marked a difference of character both in respect
to climate and to vegetation. But although the South
Amepican Steppe is covered with a thin coating of mould or
fertile earth, and although it is periodically bathed by rains,
and becomes covered at such seasons with luxuriantly
sprouting herbage, yet it never could attract the surround-
ing nations or tribes to forsake the beautiful mountain
valleys of Caraccas, the margin of the sea, or the wooded
banks of the Orinoco, for the treeless and springless wilder-
ness ; and thus, previous to the arrival of European and
African settlers, the Steppe was almost entirely devoid of
human inhabitants.

The Llanos are, indeed, well suited to the rearing of cattle,
but the care of animals yielding milk (26) was almost un-
known to the original inhabitants of the New Continent.
Hardly any of the American tribes have ever availed them-
selves of the advantages which nature offered them in this
respect. The American race (which, with the exception of
the Esquimaux, is one and the same from 65° North to 55°
South latitude), has not passed from the state of hunters to
that of cultivators of the soil through the intermediate stage
of a pastoral life. Two kinds of native cattle (the Buffalo
and the Musk Ox) feed in the northern prairies of western
Canada and the plains of arctic America, in Quivira, and

14 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

around the colossal ruins of the Aztec fortress which rises
in the wilderness, like an American Palmyra, on the solitary
banks of the Gila. The long-horned Rocky Mountain Sheep
abounds on the arid limestone rocks of California. The Yicunas,
Huanacos, Alpacas, and Lamas, belong to South America ;
but the two first named of all these useful animals, i. e.} the
Buffalo and the Musk Ox, have retained their natural
freedom for two thousand years, and the use of milk and
cheese, like the possession and cultivation of farinaceous
grasses, (27) has remained a distinguishing characteristic of
the nations of the old world.

If some of the latter have crossed from northern Asia to
the west coast of America, and if, keeping by preference to
the cooler mountain regions, (28) they have followed the lofty
ridge of the Andes towards the south, their migration must
have taken place by ways in which they could not be accom-
panied by their flocks and herds, or bring with them the
cultivation of corn. When the long shaken empire of the
Hiongnu fell, may we conjecture that the movement of this
powerful tribe may also have occasioned in the north-east of
China and in Corea a shock and an impulse which may have
caused civilized Asiatics to pass over into the new continent?
If such a migration had consisted of inhabitants of the
Steppes in which agriculture was not pursued, this hazardous
hypothesis (which has hitherto been but little favoured by
the comparison of languages) would at least explain the
striking absence of the Cereals in America. Possibly one
of those Asiatic priestly colonies whom mystic dreams
sometimes impelled to embark in long voyages, (of which

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 15

the history of the peopling of Japan (29) in the time of
Thsinchi-huang-ti offers a memorable example), may have
been driven by storms to the coasts of New California.

If, then, pastoral life, that beneficent middle stage which
attaches nomadic hunting hordes to desirable pastures and
prepares them, as it were, for agriculture, has remained un-
known to the aboriginal nations of America, this circum-
stance sufficiently explains the absence of human inhabitants
in the South American Steppes. This absence has allowed
the freest scope for the abundant development of the most
varied forms of animal life ; a development limited only by
their mutual pressure, and similar to that of vegetable life in
the forests of the Orinoco, where the Hymensea and the
gigantic laurel are never exposed to the destructive hand of
man, but only to the pressure of the luxuriant climbers
which twine around their massive trnnks. Agoutis, small
spotted antelopes, cuirassed arniadilloes, which, like rats,
startle the hare in its subterranean holes, herds of lazy
chiguires, beautifully striped viverree which poison the air
with their odour, the large maneless lion, spotted jaguars
(often called tigers) strong enough to drag away a young
bull after killing him ; — these and many other forms of
animal life (30) wander through the treeless plain.

Thus almost exclusively inhabited by these wild animals,
the Steppe would offer little attraction or means of sub-
sistence to those nomadic native hordes, who, like the
Asiatics of Hindostan, prefer vegetable nutriment, if it were
not for the occasional presence of single individuals of the
fan palm, the Mauri tia. The benefits of this life- supporting

16 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

tree are widely celebrated ; it alone, from the mouth of the
Orinoco to north of the Sierra de Imataca, feeds the un-
subdued nation of the Guaranis. (31) When this people
were more numerous and lived in closer contiguity, not only
did they support their huts on the cut trunks of palm trees
as pillars on which rested a scaffolding forming the floor,
but they also, it is said, twined from the leaf-stalks of the
Mauritia cords and mats, which, skilfully interwoven and
suspended from stem to stem, enabled them in the rainy
season, when the Delta is overflowed, to live in the trees
like the apes. The floor of these raised cottages is partly
covered with a coating of damp clay, on which the women
make fires for household purposes, — the flames appearing at
night from the river to be suspended high in air. The
Guaranis still owe the preservation of their physical, and
perhaps also their moral, independence, to the half-submerged,
marshy, soil over which they move with a light and rapid
step, and to their elevated dwellings in the trees, — a habita-
tion never likely to be chosen from motives of religious
enthusiasm by an American Stylites. (32) But the Mauritia
affords to the Guaranis not merely a secure dwelling-place,
but also various kinds of 'food. Before the flower of the
male palm tree breaks through its tender sheath, and only
at that period of vegetable metamorphosis, the pith of the
stem of the tree contains a meal resembling sago, which,
like the farina of the jatropha root, is dried in thin bread-
like slices. The fermented juice of the tree forms the sweet
intoxicating palm wine of the Guaranis. The scaly fruits,
which resemble in their appearance reddish fir cones, afford,

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 17

jH

like the plaintain and almost all tropical fruits, a dif-
ferent kind of nutriment, according as they are eaten after
their saccharine substance is fully developed, or in their
earlier or more farinaceous state. Thus in the lowest stage
of man's intellectual development, we find the existence of
an entire people bound up with that of a single tree ; like
the insect which lives exclusively on a single part of a
particular flower.

Since the discovery of the New Continent, the Llanos
have become habitable to men. In order to facilitate com-
munication between the Orinoco country and the coasts,
towns have been built here and there on the banks of the
streams which flow through the Steppes. (33) The rearing
of cattle has began over all parts of these vast regions.
Eluts, formed of reeds tied together with thongs and covered
with skins, are placed at distances of a da/s journey from
each other; numberless herds of oxen, horses, and mules,
estimated at the peaceful epoch of my journey at a million
and a half, roam over the Steppe. The immense multiplica-
tion of these animals, originally brought by man from the
Old Continent, is the more remarkable from the number of
dangers with which they have to contend.

When, under the vertical rays of the never-clouded sun,
the carbonized turfy covering falls into dust, the indurated
soil cracks asunder as if from the shock of an earthquake.
If at such times two opposing currents of air, whose conflict
produces a rotatory motion, come in contact with the soil,
the plain assumes a strange and singular aspect. Like
conical-shaped clouds (34) the points of which descend
VOL. i. c

18 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

to the earth, the sand rises through the rarified air
in the electrically charged centre of the whirling current;
resembling the loud waterspout dreaded by the experienced
mariner. The lowering sky sheds a dim, almost straw-
coloured light on the desolate plain. The horizon draws
suddenly nearer ; the Steppe seems to contract, and with it
the heart of the wanderer. The hot dusty particles which
fill the air increase its suffocating heat, (35) and the east
wind, blowing over the long-heated soil, brings with it no
refreshment, but rather a still more burning glow. The
pools which the yellow fading branches of the fan palm had
protected from evaporation now gradually disappear. As in
the icy north the animals become torpid with cold, so here,
under the influence of the parching drought, the crocodile
and the boa become motionless and fall asleep, deeply buried
in the dry mud. Every where the death-threatening drought
prevails, and yet, by the play of the refracted rays of light
producing the phenomenon of the mirage, the thirsty traveller
is every where pursued by the illusive image of a cool
rippling watery mirror. (36) The distant palm bush ap-
parently raised by the influence of the contact of un-
equally heated and therefore unequally dense strata of air,
hovers above the ground, from which it is separated by a
narrow intervening margin. Half concealed by the dark
clouds of dust, restless with the pain of thirst and hunger,
the horses and cattle roam around, the cattle lowing dis-
mally, and the horses stretching out their long necks and
snuffing the wind, if haply a moister current may betray the
neighbourhood of a not wholly dried up pool. More saga-

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 19

cious and cunning, the male seeks a different mode of
alleviating his thirst. The ribbed and spherical melon-
cactus (37) conceals under its prickly envelope a watery pith.
The mule first strikes the prickles aside with his fore feet,
and then ventures warily to approach his lips to the plant
and drink the cool juice. But resort to this vegetable
fountain is not always without danger, and one sees many
animals that have been lamed by the prickles of the cactus.
When the burning heat of the day is followed by the
coolness of the night, which in these latitudes is always of
the same length, even then the horses and cattle cannot
enjoy repose. Enormous bats suck their blood like vam-
pires during their sleep, or attach themselves to their backs,
causing festering wounds, in which musquitoes, hippobosces,
and a host of stinging insects, niche themselves. Thus the
animals lead a painful life during the season when, under
the fierce glow of the sun, the soil is deprived of its
moisture. At length, after the long drought, the welcome
season of the rain arrives; and then how suddenly is the
scene changed ! (38) The deep blue of the hitherto per-
petually cloudless sky becomes lighter ; at night the dark
space in the constellation of the Southern Cross is hardly
distinguishable ; the soft phosphorescent light of the Magel-
lanic clouds fades away ; even the stars in Aquila and
Ophiucus in the zenith shine with a trembling and less
planetary light. A single cloud appears in the south, like
a distant mountain, rising perpendicularly from the horizon.
Gradually the increasing vapours spread like mist over the
sky, and now the distant thunder ushers in the life-restoring.

20 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

rain. Hardly has the surface of the earth received the
refreshing moisture, before the previously barren Steppe
begins to exhale sweet odours, and to clothe itself with
Kyllingias, the many panicules of the Paspalum, and a variety
of grasses. The herbaceous mimosas, with renewed sensi-
bility to the influence of light, unfold their drooping slum-
bering leaves to greet the rising sun ; and the early song oi
birds, and the opening blossoms of the water plants, join to
salute the morning. -The horses and cattle now graze in
full enjoyment of life. The tall springing grass hides the
beautifully spotted jaguar, who lurking in safe concealment,
arid measuring carefully the distance of a single bound,
springs, cat-like, as the Asiatic tiger, on his passing prey.

Sometimes, (so the Aborigines relate), on the margin of
the swamps the moistened clay is seen to blister and rise
slowly in a kind of mound ; then with a violent noise, like
the outbreak of a small mud volcano, the heaped-up earth is
cast high into the air. The beholder acquainted with the
meaning of this spectacle flies, for he knows there will issue
forth a gigantic water-snake or a scaly crocodile, awakened
from a torpid state (39) by the first fall of rain.

The rivers which bound the plain to the south, the
Arauca, Apure, and Payara, become gradually swollen ; and
now nature constrains the same animals, who in the first
half olf the year panted with thirst on the dry and dusty
soil, to adopt an amphibious life. A portion of the Steppe
now presents the aspect of a vast inland sea. (40) The
brood inares retire with their foals to the higher banks,
wnich stand like islands above the surface of the lake.

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 21

Every day the space remaining dry becomes smaller. The
animals, crowded together, swim about for hours in search
of other pasture, and feed sparingly on the tops of the
flowering grasses rising above the seething surface of the
dark-coloured water. Many foals are drowned, and many
are surprised by the crocodiles, killed by a stroke of their
powerful notched tails, and devoured. It is not a rare
thing to see the marks of the pointed teeth of these monsters
on the legs of the horses and cattle who have narrowly
escaped from their blood-thirsty jaws. Such a sight reminds
the thoughtful observer involuntarily of the capability of
conforming to the most varied circumstances, with which the
all-providing Author of Nature has endowed certain animals
and plants.

The ox and the horse, like the farinaceous cerealia, have
followed man over the whole surface of the globe, from
India to Northern Siberia, from the Ganges to the River
Plate, from the African sea shore to the mountain plateau
of Antisana, (41) which is higher than the summit of the
Peak of Teneriffe. The ox wearied from the plough reposes,
sheltered from the noontide sun in one country by the
quivering shadow of the northern birch, and in another by
the date palm. The same species which, in the east of
Europe, has to encounter the attacks of bears and wolves,
is exposed in other regions to the assaults of tigers and
crocodiles.

But the crocodile and jaguar are not the only assailants
of the South American horses ; they have also a dangerous
enemy among fishes. The marshy waters of Bera and

22 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Rastro (42) are filled with numberless electric eels, which can
at pleasure send a powerful discharge from any part of their
slimy yellow spotted bodies. These gymnoti are from five to
six feet in length, and are powerful -enough to kill the
largest animals when they discharge their nervous organs at
once in a favourable direction.

The route from Uritucu through the Steppe was formerly
obliged to be changed, because the gymnoti had increased to
such numbers in a small stream that in crossing it many
horses were drowned every year, either from the effects of
the shocks they received, or from fright. All other fishes
fly the vicinity of these formidable eels. Even the fisherman
angling from the high bank fears lest the damp line should
convey the shock to him from a distance. Thus, in these
regions, electric fire breaks forth from the bosom of the
waters.

The capture of the gymnoti affords a picturesque spectacle.
Mules and horses are driven into a marsh which is closely
surrounded by Indians, until the unwonted noise and
disturbance induce the pugnacious fish to begin an attack.
One sees them swimming about like serpents, and trying
cunningly to glide under the bellies of the horses. Many
of these are stunned by the force of the invisible blows ;
others, with manes standing on end, foaming and with wild
terror sparkling in their eyes, try to fly from the raging
tempest. But the Indians, armed with long poles of
bamboo, drive them back into the middle of the pool.
Gradually the fury of the unequal strife begins to slacken.
Like clouds which have discharged their electricity, the

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 23

wearied fish begin to disperse ; long repose and abundant
food are required to replace the galvanic force which they
have expended. Their shocks become gradually weaker and
weaker. Terrified by the noise of the trampling horses, they
timidly approach the bank, where they are wounded by
harpoons, and cautiously drawn on shore by non-conducting
pieces of dry wood.

Such is the extraordinary battle between horses and fish.
That which forms the invisible but living weapon of this
electric eel ; — that which, awakened by the contact of moist
dissimilar particles, (43) circulates through all the organs of
plants and animals ; — that which, flashing from the thunder
cloud, illumines the wide skyey canopy ; — that which draws
iron to iron and directs the silent recurring march of the
guiding needle ; — all, like the several hues of the divided
ray of light, flow from one source; and all blend again
together in one perpetually, every where diffused, force or
power.

I might here close the hazardous attempt to trace a
picture of nature such as she shows herself in the Steppes.
But as on the ocean fancy not unwillingly dwells awhile on
the image of its distant shores, so, before the wide plain
disappears from our view, let us cast a rapid glance at
the regions by which the Steppes are bounded.

The Northern Desert of Africa divides two races of men
who belong originally to the same part of the globe, and
whose unreconciled discord appears as ancient as the mythus
of Osiris and Typhoii. (44) North of the Atlas there dwell
nations with long and straight hair, of sallow complexion and

24 STEPPES AND DESEKTS.

Caucasian features. On the south of the Senegal, towards
Soudan, live hordes of negroes in many different stages of
civilization. In Central Asia, the Mongolian Steppe divides
Siberian barbarism from the ancient civilisation of the
peninsula of India.

The South American Steppes form the boundary of a
partial European cultivation. (45) To the north, between
the mountains of Venezuela and the Caribbean sea, we find
commercial cities, neat villages, and carefully cultivated
fields. Even the love of art and scientific culture, together
with the noble desire of civil freedom, have long been
awakened there. Towards the south the Steppe terminates
in a savage wilderness. Forests, the growth of thousands
of years, fill with their impenetrable fastnesses the humid
regions between the Orinoco and the Amazons. Massive
leaden-coloured granite rocks (46) narrow the bed of the
foaming rivers. Mountains and forests resound with the
thunder of the falling waters, with the roar of the tiger-like
jaguar, and with the melancholy rain-announcing howlings
of the bearded apes. (4?)

Where a sand-bank is left dry by the shallow current, the
unwieldly crocodiles lie, with open jaws, as motionless as
pieces of rock and often covered with birds. (48) The
boa serpent, his body marked like a chess-board, coiled up,
his tail wound round the branch of a tree, lies lurking on
the bank secure of his prey ; he marks the young bull or
some fee'bler inhabitant of the forest as it fords the stream,
and swiftly uncoiling seizes the victim, and covering it with
mucus forces it laboriously down his swelling throat. (49)

STEPPES AND DESERTS. 25

In the midst of this grand and savage nature live many
tribes of men, isolated from each other by the extraordi-
nary diversity of their languages : some are nomadic, wholly
unacquainted with agriculture, and using ants, gums; and
earth as food (50) ; these, as the Otomacs and Jarures, seem
a kind of outcasts from humanity : others, like the Maqui-
ritares and Macos, ace settled, more intelligent and of
milder manners, and live on fruits which they have them-
selves reared.

Large spaces between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo
are only inhabited by the tapir and the social apes, and are
wholly destitute of human beings. Figures graven on th^
rocks (51) shew that even these deserts were once the seat
of some degree of intellectual cultivation. They bear
witness to the changeful destinies of man, as do the un-
equally developed flexible languages ; which latter belong to
the oldest and most imperishable class of historic me-
morials.

But as in the Steppe tigers and crocodiles fight with horses
and cattle, so in the forests on its borders, in the wilder-
nesses of Guiana, man is ever armed against man. Some
tribes drink with unnatural thirst the blood of their enemies •
others apparently weaponless and yet prepared for murder (52)
kill with a poisoned thumb-nail. The weaker hordes, when
they have to pass along the sandy margin of the rivers,
carefully efface with their hands the traces of their timid
footsteps. Thus man in the lowest stage of almost animal
rudeness, as well as amidst the apparent brilliancy of our
higher cultivation, prepares for himself and his fellow

26 STEPPES ANJ3 DESERTS.

men increased toil and danger. The traveller wandering
over the wide globe by sea and land, as well as the historic
inquirer searching the records of past ages, finds every
where the uniform and saddening spectacle of man at
variance with man.

He, therefore, who, amidst the unreconciled discord of
nations, seeks for intellectual caln\, gladly turns to con-
template the silent life of vegetation, and the hidden activi-
ties of forces and powers operating in the sanctuaries of
nature ; or, obedient to the inborn impulse which for
thousands of years has glowed in the human breast, gazes
.upwards in meditative contemplation on those celestial orbs,
which are ever pursuing in undisturbed harmony their
ancient and unchanging course.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 27

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(*) p. 1.—" The Lake of Tacarigua."

In proceeding through the interior of South America
from the Caraccas or Venezuela shore towards the boundary
of Brazil, from the 10th degree of North latitude to the
Equator, the traveller crosses first an elevated mountain-
chain running in an east and west direction, next vast
treeless Steppes or Plains (los Llanos), which stretch from
the foot of the above-named mountains (the coast chain of
Caraccas) to the left bank of the Orinoco, and lastly the
range which occasions the Cataracts of Atures and Maypure.
This latter range of mountains, to which I have given the
name of the Sierra Parime, runs in an easterly direction
from the Cataracts to Dutch and Trench Guiana. It is a
mass of mountains divided into many parallel ridges, and is
the site of the fabled Dorado. It is bordered on the south
by the forest plain, through which the river of the Amazons
and the Eio Negro have formed the channels in which
their waters flow. Those who desire a fuller acquaintance
with the geography of these regions will do well to consult
and compare the great map of La Cruz-Olmedilla, bearing
date 1775, (from which almost all the more recent maps of
South America have been formed,) and the map of Columbia

28 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

constructed by me Tom my own astronomical determinations
of geographical positions, and published in 1825.

The coast chain of Venezuela, geographically considered,
is a part of the chain of the Andes of Peru. The chain of
the Andes divides itself, at the great mountain junction at
the sources of the Magdalena, south of Popayan, (between
1° 55' and 2° 20' latitude), into three chains, the easternmost
of which terminates in the snow-covered mountains of
Merida. These mountains sink down towards the Paramo
de las Rosas into the hilly land of Quibor and Tocuyo, which
connects the coast chain of Venezuela with the Cordilleras
of Cundinamarca. The coast chain forms an unbroken
rampart from Porto Cabello to the promontory of Paria. Its
mean height hardly equals 750 toises or 4795 English feet;
yet single summits, like the Silla de Caracas (also called
Cerro de Avila), decked with the purple-flowering Befaria
the American Eose of the Alps, rise 1350 toises or 8630
English feet above the level of the sea. The coast of Terra
Firma bears traces of devastation. "We recognise everywhere
the action of the great current which, sweeping from east to
west, formed by disruption the West Indian Islands, and
hoUowed out the Caribbean gulf. The projecting tongues of
land of Araja and Chuparipari, and especially the coast of Cu-
mana and New Barcelona, offer a remarkable spectacle to the
geologist. The precipitous Islands of Boracha, Caracas,
and Chimanas, rise like towers from the sea, and bear witness
to the terrible pressure of the ^waters against the mountain
chain when it was broken by their irruption. Perhaps, like
the Mediterranean, the Antillean gulf was once an inland

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 29

sea, which became suddenly connected with the ocean. The
islands of Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica, still contain the rem-
nants of the lofty mountains of mica slate which bounded
this sea to the north. It is remarkable that where
these three islands approach each other most nearly the
highest summits are found ; and we may conjecture that
the highest part of this Antillean chain was situated
between Cape Tiburon and Point Morant. The Copper
Mountains (Montaiias de Cobre) near Santiago de Cuba
have not yet been measured, but their elevation is probably
greater than that of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, (1138
toises, 7277 English feet,) which somewhat exceeds the
height of the St. Gothard Pass. My conjectures on the
valley-form of the Atlantic Ocean, and on the ancient
connection of the continents, were given more in detail
in a memoir written in Cumana, entitled Fragment d'un
Tableau Geologique de FArnerique Meridionale (Journal de
Physique, Messidor, An. IX.) It is worthy of remark, that
Columbus himself, in his Official Reports, called attention
to the connection between the direction of the equatorial
current and the form of the coast line of the larger
Antilles. (Examen critique de 1'hist. de la Geographic,
p. 104-108.)

The northern and most cultivated part of the province of
Caraccas is a country of mountains. The coast chain is
divided like the Swiss Alps into several subordinate chains
enclosing longitudinal valleys. The most celebrated of these
is the pleasant valley of Aragua, which produces a great
quantity of indigo, sugar, cotton, and, what is most re-

30 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

markable, European wheat. The southern margin of this
valley adjoins the beautiful lake of Valencia, whose old
Indian name is Tacarigua. The contrast between its oppo-
site shores gives it a striking resemblance to the Lake of
Geneva. It is true that the bare mountains of Guigue and
Guiripa have less grandeur of character than the Savoy
Alps; but, on the other hand, the opposite bank of the
Tacarigua lake, which is thickly clothed with plantains,
mimosas, and triplaris, far surpasses in picturesque beauty
the vineyards of the Pays de Yaud. The lake is about
thirty geographical miles in length, and is full of small
islands, which, as the loss of water by evaporation exceeds
the influx, are increasing in size. Within some years sand-
banks have even become real islands, and have received
the significant name of the " Newly Appeared," Las Apa-
recidas. On the island of Cura the remarkable species of
Solanum is cultivated which has edible fruit, and which
Wildenow has described in the Hortus Berolinensis (1816,
Tab. xxvii.) The height of the Lake of Tacarigua above
the sea is almost 1400 French feet, (according to my
measurement exactly 230 toises, or 1470 English feet,) less
than the mean height of the valley of Caraccas. The lake
has several kinds of fish (see my Observations de Zoologie
et d' Anatomic comparee, T. ii p. 179-181), and is one of
the most pleasing natural scenes which I know in any
part of the globe. In bathing, Bonpland and myself were
often alarmed by the appearance of the Bava, an undescribed
crocodile-like lizard, three or four feet in length, of repulsive
aspect, but harmless to men. We found in the lake a

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 31

Typha (Cats-tail); identical with the European Typha an-
gustifoiia ; a singular fact, and important in reference to the
geography of plants.

Two varieties of sugar-cane are cultivated near the lake,
in the valleys of Aragua : the common sugar-cane of the
West Indies, Cana criolla ; and the cane recently introduced
from the Pacific, Cana de Otaheiti. The verdure of the
Tahiti an cane is of a much lighter and more agreeable tint,
and a field of it can readily be distinguished at a great dis-
tance from a field of the common cane. The sugar-cane of
Tahiti was first described by Cook and George Porster, who
appear, however, from the excellent memoir of the latter
upon the edible plants of the islands of the Pacific, to have
been but little acquainted with its valuable qualities. Bou-
gainville brought it to the Isle of Prance, from whence it
was conveyed to Cayenne, and since 1792 it has been taken
to Martinique, Hayti, and several of the smaller West Indian
Islands. It was carried with the bread-fruit tree to Jamaica
by the brave but unfortunate Captain Bligh, and was intro-
duced from the Island of Trinidad to the neighbouring coast
of Caraccas, where it became a more important acquisition
than the bread-fruit, which is never likely to supersede a
plant so valuable and affording so large an amount of
sustenance as the plantain. The Tahitian sugar-cane is much
richer in juice than the common cane, said to be originally
a native of the east of Asia. On an equal surface of ground
it yields a third more sugar than the cana criolla, which has
a thinner stalk and smaller joints. As, moreover, the West
India islands begin to suffer great want of fuel, (in Cuba

32 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

the wood of the orange tree is used for sugar boiling,) the
thicker arid more woody stalk of the Tahitian cane is an
important advantage. If the introduction of this plant had
not taken place almost at the same time as the commence-
ment of the bloody negro war in St. Domingo, the prices of
sugar in Europe would have risen still higher than they did,
in consequence of the ruinous effects of those troubles on
agriculture and trade. It was an important question,
whether the cane of the Pacific, when removed from its
native soil, would gradually degenerate and become the
same as the common cane. Experience hitherto has de-
cided against any such degeneration. In Cuba a caballeria
(nearly 33 English acres) planted with Tahitian sugar-cane
produces 870 hundred weight of sugar. It is singular that
this important production of the islands of the Pacific is only
cultivated in those parts of the Spanish colonies which are
farthest from the Pacific. The Peruvian coast is only
twenty-five days' sail from Tahiti, and yet, at the period of
my travels in Peru and Chili, the Tahitian cane was unknown
there. The inhabitants of Easter Island, who suffer much
from deficiency of fresh water, drink the juice of the sugar-
cane, and (a very remarkable physiological fact) also sea water.
In the Society, Friendly, and Sandwich Islands, the light
green, thick-stalked sugar-cane is always the one cultivated.
Besides the Cana de Otaheiti and the Cana Criolla, a
reddish African variety, called Cana de Guinea, is cultivated
in the West Indies : its juice is less in quantity than that
of the common Asiatic cane, but is said to be better suited
for making rum.

ANNOTATIONS ANb ADDITIONS. 33

In the province of Caraccas the dark shade of the cacao
plantations contrasts beautifully with the light green of the
Tahitian sugar cane. Few tropical trees have such thick
foliage as the Theobroma cacao. It loves hot and humid
valleys : great fertility of soil and insalubrity of atmosphere
are inseparable from each other in South America as well as
in Asia ; and it has even been remarked that as increasing
cultivation lessens the extent of the forests, and renders the
soil and climate less humid, the cacao plantations become
less nourishing. For these reasons these plantations are
diminishing in number and extent in the province of
Caraccas, and increasing rapidly in the more eastern pro-
vinces of New Barcelona and Cumana, and particularly in
the moist woody district between Cariaco and the Golfo
Triste.

(2) p. 2. — "" ' Banks3 is the name given by the natives
to this phenomenon"

The Llanos of Caraccas are occupied by a great and
widely extended formation of congiomerate of an early
period. In descending from the vallies of Aragua, and
crossing over the most southern ridge of the coast chain
of Guigue and Villa de Cura towards Parapara, one finds
successively, gneiss and mica slate ; — a probably silurian
formation of clay slate and black limestone ; — serpentine and
greenstone in detached spheroidal masses ; — and, lastly, close
to the margin of the great plain, small hills of augitic
amygdaloid and porphyritic slate. These hills between
Parapara and Ortiz appear to me like volcanic eruptions on

VOL. I. D

34 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

the ancient sea-shore of the Llanos. Farther to the north
are the celebrated grotesque-shaped cavernous rocks of
Morros de San Juan ; they form a kind of rampart, have
a crystalline grain like upheaved dolomite, and are rather to
be regarded as parts of the shore of the ancient gulf than as
islands. I term the Llanos a gulf, for when we consider
their small elevation above the present sea level, their form
open as it were to the equatorial current sweeping from east
to west, and the lowness of the eastern coast between the
mouth of the Orinoco and the Essequibo, we can scarcely doubt
that the sea once overflowed the whole basin between the
coast chain of Caraccas and the Sierra de la Parime, and
beat against the mountains of Merida and Pamplona ; (as it is
supposed to have overflowed the plains of Lombardy, and beat
against the Cottian and Pennine Alps). The strike or
inclination of the American Llanos is also directed from
west to east. Their height at Calabozo, 400 geographical
miles from the sea, is barely 30 toises (192 English feet) ;
being 15 toises (96 Engb'sh feet) less than that of Pavia,
and 45 toises (288 English feet) less than that of Milan, in
the plains of Lombardy between the Alps and Apennines.
The form of the surface -of this part of the globe reminds
one of Claudian's expression, " curvata tumore parvo plain-
ties." The horizontally of the Llanos is so perfect that in
many portions of them no part of an area of more than 480
square miles appears to be a foot higher than the rest. If,
in addition to this, we imagine to ourselves the absence of
all bushes, and even in the Mesa de Pavones the absence of
any isolated palm-trees, it will afford some idea of the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 35

singular aspect of this sea-like desert plain. As far as the
eye can reach, it can hardly rest on a single object a few
inches high. If it were not that the state of the lowest
strata of the atmosphere, and the consequent changes of
refraction, render the horizon continually indeterminate and
undulating, altitudes of the sun might be taken with the
sextant from the margin of the plain as well as from the
horizon at sea. This great horizontality of the former sea
bottom makes the "banks" more striking. They are
broken strata which rise abruptly from two to three feet above
the surrounding rock, and extend uniformly over a length
of from 40 to 48 English geographical miles. The small
streams of the Steppes take their rise on these banks.

In passing through the Llanos of.Barcelona, on our return
from the Rio Negro, we found frequent traces of earth-
quakes. Instead of the banks standing higher than the
surrounding rock, we found here solitary strata of gypsum
from 3 to 4 toises (19 to 25 English feet) lower. Partner
to the west, near the junction of the Caura with the Orinoco,
and to the east of the mission of S. Pedro de Alcantara, an
extensive tract of dense forest sank down in an earthquake
in 1790, and a lake was formed of more than 300 toises
(1918 English feet) diameter. The tall trees (Desmanthus,
Hymenseas, and Malpighias) long retained their foliage and
verdure under the water.

(3) p. 2. — "We seem to see before us a shoreless ocean"

The prospect of the distant Steppe is still more striking,

when the spectator has been long accustomed in the dense

36 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

forests both to a very restricted field of view, and to the
aspect of a rich and highly luxuriant vegetation. In-
effaceable is the impression which I received on our return
from the Upper Orinoco, when, from the Hato del Capuchino,
on a mountain opposite to the mouth of the Rio Apure, we
first saw. again the distant Steppe. The sun had just set ;
the Steppe appeared to rise like a hemisphere ; and the light
of the rising stars was refracted in the lowest stratum of air
The excessive heating of the plain by the vertical rays of
the sun causes the variations of refraction, — occasioned by
the effects of radiation, of the ascending current, and of the
contact of strata of air of unequal density, — to continue
through the entire night.

(4) -p. 2. — " The naked stony crust."

Immense tracts of flat bare rock form peculiar and
characteristic features in the Deserts both of Africa and
Asia. In the Schamo, which separates Mongolia and the
mountain chains of Ulangom and Malakha-Oola from the
north-west part of China, these banks of rock are called
Tsy. They are also found in the forest-covered plains of
the Orinoco, surrounded ' by the most luxuriant vegetation
(Relation Hist. t. ii. p. 279). In the middle of these flat
tabular masses of granite and syenite of some thousand feet
diameter, denuded of all vegetation save a few scantily dis-
tributed lichens, we find small islands of soil, covered with
low and always flowering plants which give them the ap-
pearance of little gardens. The monks of the Upper Orinoco
regard these bare and perfectly level surfaces of rock, when

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 37

they are of considerable extent, as peculiarly apt to cause
fevers and other illnesses. Several missionary villages have
been deserted or removed elsewhere in consequence of this
opinion, which is very widely diffused. Supposing the
opinion correct, is such an influence of these flat rocks or
laxas to be attributed to a chemical action on the atmo-
sphere, or merely to the effect of increased radiation ?

(5) p. 2. — " The Llanos and Pampas of South America,
and the Prairies of the Missouri"

The physical and geognostical views entertained respect-
ing the western part of North America have been rectified
in many respects by the adventurous journey of Major
Long, the excellent writings of his companion Edwin James,
and more especially by the comprehensive observations of
Captain Fremont. These, and all other recent accounts,
now place in a clear light what, in my work on New Spain,
I could only put forward as conjecture, on the subject of
the mountain ridges and plains to the north. In the
description of nature as well as in historical inquiries,
facts long remain isolated, until by laborious investigation
they are brought into connection with each other.

The east coast of the United States of North America
runs from south-west to north-east, in the same direction as
that followed in the southern hemisphere by the Brazilian
coast from the river Plate to Olinda. In the two hemi-
spheres two ranges of mountains exist at a short distance
from the eastern coast; they are more nearly parallel to

38 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

each other than they are to the more westerly chain, called
in South America the Cordilleras of Peru and Chili, and
in North America the Rocky Mountains. The Brazilian
system of mountains forms an isolated group, of which the
highest summits (the Itacolumi and Itambe) do not rise
above the height of 900 toises (5755 English feet). The
most easterly ridges, which are nearest to the Atlantic, follow
a uniform direction from SSW. to NNE. ; more to the
west the group becomes broader, but diminishes considerably
in height. The Parecis hills approach the rivers Itenes
and Guapore*, and the mountains of Aguapehi (to the
south of Yillabella) approach the lofty Andes of Cocha-
bamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

There is no immediate connection between the eastern and
western chains, — the Brazilian mountains, and the Cordilleras
of Peru, — for the low province of Chiquitos, which is a
longitudinal valley running from north to south, and open-
ing into the plains both of the Amazons and of the river
Plate, separates Brazil on the east from the Alto Peru on
the west. Here, as in Poland and Russia, an often almost
imperceptible rise of ground (called, in Slavonian, Uwaly)
forms the separating water-line between the Pilcomayo and
the Madeira, between the Aguapehi and the Guapore, and
between the Paraguay and the Rio Topayos. The swell of
the ground runs to the south-east from Chayanta and Poma-
bamba (lat. 19° — 20°), traverses the province of Chiquitos,
which, since the expulsion of the Jesuits, has again become
almost a terra incognita, and forms, to the north-east,
where there are only detached mountains, the "divortia

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 39

aquarum" at the sources of the Baures and near Yillabella,
lat. 15°— 17°.

This Hue of separation of the waters is important in relation
to facilities of intercourse, and to the increase of cultivation
and civilisation : more to the north (2° — 3° N. lat.), a similar
line divides the basin of the Orinoco from that of the Ama-
zons and the Rio Negro. These risings or swellings in the
plains (called, by Frontin, terrse tumores) might be regarded
as undeveloped systems of mountains, which would have con-
nected two apparently isolated groups (the Sierra Parime
and the Brazilian mountains) with the Andes of Timana and
Cochabamba. These relations, which have been hitherto but
little attended to, are the ground of the division which I
have made of South America into three basins ; viz. those
of the lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the Eio de
la Plata. The first and last of these are steppes or prairies ;
the middle basin, that of the Amazons, between the Sierra
Parime and the Brazilian group of mountains, is a forest-
covered plain or Hyl<ea.

If we wish to trace, in equally few lines, a sketch of the
natural features of North America, let us cast our eyes first
on the mountain chain which, running from south-east to
north-west, at first low and narrow, and increasing both in
breadth and height from Panama to Yeragua, Guatimala,
and Mexico (where it was the seat of a civilisation which
preceded the arrival of Europeans), arrests the general equa-
torial current of the waters of the ocean, and opposes a
barrier to the more rapid commercial intercourse of Europe
and Western Africa with the eastern parts of Asia. North

40 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of the 17th degree of latitude and the celebrated isthmus
of Tehuantepec, the mountains, quitting the coast of the
Pacific, and following a more direct northerly course, be-
come an inland Cordillera. In North Mexico, the " Crane
Mountains" (Sierra de las Grullas) form part of the Rocky
Mountain chain. Here rise, to the west, the Columbia and
the Bio Colorado of California ; and, to the east, the Eio Eoxo
de Natchitoches, the Candian, the Arkansas, and the Platte
or shallow river, a name which has latterly been ignorautly
transformed into that of a silver-promising river Plate.
Between the sources of these rivers (from N. lat. 37° 20' to
40° 13') rise three lofty summits (formed of a granite con-
taining much hornblende and little mica), called Spanish
Peak, James's or Pike's Peak, and Big Horn or Long's
Peak. (See my Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne,
2me edit. t. i. ppi 82 and 109.) The elevation of these
peaks exceeds that of any of the summits of the Andes of
North Mexico, which, indeed, from the 18th and 19th
parallels of latitude, or from the group of Orizaba and Popo-
catepetl (respectively 2717 toises or 17374 English feet,
and 2771 toises or 17720 English feet,) to Santa Fe and
Taos, never reach the limits of perpetual snow. James
Peak, in lat. 38° 40', is supposed to be 1798 toises, or
11497 English feet ; but of this elevation only ] 335 toises
(8537 English feet) has been measured trigonometrically,
the remaining 463 toises, or 2960 English feet, being de-
pendent, in the absence of barometrical observations, on
uncertain estimations of the declivity of streams. As a
trigonometrical measurement can hardly ever be undertaken

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 41

from the level of the sea, measurements of inaccessible
heights must generally be partly trigonometrical, and partly
barometrical. Estimations of the fall of rivers, of their
rapidity and of the length of their course, are so deceptive,
that the plain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, nearest to
the summits above spoken of, was estimated, previous to the
important expedition of Capt. Fremont, sometimes at 8000,
and sometimes at 3000 feet. (Long's Expedition, vol. ii.
pp. 36, 362, 382, App. p. xxxvii.) It was from a similar
deficiency of barometrical measurements that the true eleva-
tion of the Himalaya continued so long uncertain : but now
the resources which belong to the cultivation of science
have increased in India to such a degree, that Captain
Gerard, when on the Tarhigang, near the Sutlej, north of
Shipke, at an elevation of 19411 English feet, after breaking
three barometers, had still four equally correct ones remain-
ing. (Critical Researches on Philology and Geography,
1824, p. 144.)

Fremont, in the expedition which he made in the years
1842 — 1844 by order of the Government of the United
States, found the highest summit of the whole chain of the
Rocky Mountains to the north north-west of Spanish, James's,
Long's, and Laramie Peaks. This snowy summit, of which
he measured the elevation barometrically, belongs to the
group of the Wind River mountains. It bears on the large
map, edited by Colonel Abert, Chief of the Topographical
Office at Washington, the name of Fremont's Peak, and is
situated in 43° 10' lat. and 110° 13' W. long, from
Greenwich, almost 5|-° north of Spanish Peak. Its height,

42 STEPPES AND DESEETS.

by direct measurement, is 12730 French, or 13568 English
feet. This would make Fremont's Peak 324 toises (or
2072 English feet) higher than the elevation assigned by
Long to James's Peak, which, according to its position,
appears to be identical with Pike's Peak in the map above
referred to. The Wind Eiver mountains form the divortia
aquarum, or division between the waters flowing towards
either ocean. Captain Fremont (in his Official Report of
the Exploring Expedition to the Bocky Mountains in the
year 1842, and. to Oregon and North California in the years
1843-44, p. 70,) says, " We saw, on one side, countless
mountain lakes, and the sources of the Eio Colorado which
carries its waters through the gulf of California to the
Pacific ; and, on the other side, the deep valley of the Wind
river, where are situated the sources of the Yellowstone
river, one of the principal branches of the Missouri which
unites with the Mississippi at St. Louis. To the north-
west, rise, covered with perpetual snow, the summits called
the Trois Tetons, where the true source of the Missouri
itself is situated, not far from that of the head water of the
Oregon or Columbia, or the source of that branch of it
called Snake Eiver or Lewis- Fork." To the astonishment of
the adventurous travellers, they found the top of Fremont's
Peak visited by bees : perhaps, like the butterflies seen by
me, also among perpetual snow but in much more elevated
regions in the Andes of Peru, they had been carried thither
involuntarily by ascending currents of air. I have seen
in the Pacific, at a great distance from the coast, large
winged lepidopterous insects fall on the deck of the ship,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 43

having, no doubt, been carried far out to sea by land
winds.

Fremont's map and geographical investigations comprehend
the extensive region from the junction of the Kanzas river
with the Missouri, to the falls of the Columbia and to the
missions of Santa Barbara and Pueblo de los Angeles in
New California; or a space of 28 degrees of longitude,
and from the 34th to the 45th parallel of latitude. Four
hundred points have been determined hypsometrically by
barometric observations, and, for the most part, geographi-
cally by astronomical observations ; so that a district which,
with the windings of the route, amounts to 3600 geogra-
phical miles, from the mouth of the Kanzas to Eort Vancouver
and the shores of the Pacific (almost 720 miles more than
the distance from Madrid to Tobolsk), has been represented
in profile, shewing the relative heights above the level of
the sea. As I was, I believe, the first person who under-
took to represent, in geognostic profile, the form of entire
countries, — such as the Iberian peninsula, the highlands of
Mexico, and the Cordilleras of South America, (the semi-
perspective projections of a Siberian traveller, the Abbe
Chappe, were founded on mere and generally ill-judged
estimations of the fall of rivers),— it has given me peculiar
pleasure to see the graphical method of representing the
form of the earth in a vertical direction, or the elevation of
the solid portions of our planet above its watery covering,
applied on so grand a scale as has been done in Fremont' s
map. In the middle latitudes of 37° to 43°, the Rocky
Mountains present, besides the higher snowy summits

44 STEPPES AND DESERTS,

comparable with the Peak of Teneriffe in elevation, lofty
plains of an extent hardly met with elsewhere on the sur-
face of the earth, and almost twice as extensive in an east
and west direction as that of the Mexican plateaux. Prom
the group of mountains, which commences a little to the
west of Fort Laramie to beyond the Wahsatch mountains,
there is an uninterrupted swelling of the ground from
5300 to 7400 English feet above the level of the
sea. A similar elevation may even be said to occupy
the whole space from 34° to 45° between the Rocky
Mountains proper and the Californian snowy coast chain.
This space, a kind of broad longitudinal valley like that of
the lake of Titiaca, has been called, by Joseph "Walker,
a traveller well acquainted with these western regions, and
by Captain Fremont, " The Great Basin/' It is a terra
incognita of at least 128000 square miles in extent, arid,
almost entirely without human inhabitants, and full of
salt lakes, the largest of which is 4200 English feet
above the level of the sea, and is connected with the
narrow lake of Utah. (Fremont, Eeport of the Exploring
Expedition, pp. 154 and 273—276.) The last-mentioned
lake receives the abundant waters of the " Rock River/'
Timpan Ogo, in the Utah language. Father Escalante, in
journeying, in 1776, from Santa Fe del Nuevo Mexico to
Monterey in New California, discovered Fremont's " Great
Salt Lake/' and, confounding lake and river, gave it the
name of Laguna de Timpanogo. As such I inserted it in
my map of Mexico ; and this has given rise to much un-
critical discussion on the assumed non-existence of a great

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 45

inland salt lake in North America, — a question previously
raised by the well-informed American geographer, Tanner.
(Humboldt, Atlas Mexicain, planche 2 ; Essai Politique sur
la Nouvelle Espagne, T. i. p. 231, T. ii. pp. 243, 313, and
420 ; Fremont, Upper California, 1848, p. 9 ; and, also,
Duflot de Mofras, Exploration de FOregon, 1844, T. ii.
p? 40.) Gallatin says expressly, in the Memoir on the
Aboriginal Races in the Archseologia Americana, vol. ii.
p. 140, " General Ashley and Mr. J. S. Smith have found
the lake Timpanogo in the same latitude and longitude
nearly as had been assigned to it in Humboldt's Atlas of
Mexico."

I have dwelt on the remarkable swelling of the ground
in the region of the Rocky Mountains, because, doubtless,
by its elevation and extent, it exercises an influence hitherto
but little considered, on the climate of the whole continent
of North America, to the south and east. In the ex-
tensive continuous plateau, Fremont saw the waters covered
with ice every night in the month of August. Nor is
the elevation of this region less important as respects the
social state and progress of the great United States of
North America. Although the elevation of the line of the
separation of the waters nearly equals that of the passes of
the Simplon (6170 French, or 6576 English feet), of the
St. Gothard (6440 French, or 6865 English feet), and of
the St. Bernard (7476 French, or 7969 English feet), yet
the ascent is so gradual, as to offer no obstacle to the use
of wheel carriages of all kinds in the communication between
the basins of the Missouri and the Oregon ; in other words,

46 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

between the states on the Atlantic Sea Board opposite
Europe, and the new settlements on the Oregon and
Columbia opposite China. The itinerary distance from
Boston to Astoria on the Pacific at the mouth of the
Columbia, is, according to the difference of longitude,
2200 geographical miles, or about one-sixth less than the
distance of Lisbon from the Ural near Katharinenburg.
From the gentleness of the ascent of the high plateau which
leads from the Missouri to California and to the basin of
the Oregon, — (from the Eiver and Port Laramie, on the
northern branch of the Platte Eiver, to Port Hall on tht.
Lewis Pork of the Columbia, all the camping places of
which the height was measured were from upwards of
five to seven thousand, and at Old Park even 9760
Prench, or 10,403 English feet) ; — it has not been easy
to determine the situation of the culminating point, or
"divortia aquarum." It is south of the Wind Eiver
mountains, nearly midway between the Mississipi and the
coast of the Pacific, at an elevation of 7027 Prench, or
7490 English feet; therefore only 450 Prench, or 480
English, feet lower than the Pass of the great St. Bernard.
The immigrants call this point "the South Pass." (Pre-
mont's Eeport, pp. 3, 60, 70, 100, 129). It is situated in
a pleasant district, in which the mica slate and gneiss rock
are found covered with many species of Artemisia, particu-
larly Artemisia tridentata (Nuttall), asters, and cactuses.
Astronomical determinations give the latitude 42° 24', and
the longitude 109° 24' W. from Greenwich. Adolph Erman
has already called attention to the circumstance that the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 47

direction of the great chain of the Aldan mountains in the
east of Asia, which divides the streams flowing into the
Lena from those which flow towards the Pacific, if prolonged
on the surface of the globe in the direction of a great
circle, passes through several summits of the Eocky Moun-
tains, between the parallels of 40° tind 55° "Thus an
American and an Asiatic chain of mountains appear to
belong to one great fissure, following the direction of a
great circle, or the shortest course from point to point."
(Compare Erman's Eeise um die Erde, Abth. I. Bd. in. S.
8, Abth. II. Bd. i. S. 386, with his Archiv fur wissen-
schaftliche Kunde von Eussland, Bd. vi. S. 671).

The Eocky Mountains which sink down towards the
Mackenzie Eiver which is covered a large portion of the year
with ice, and the highlands from which single snow-clad
summits rise, are altogether distinct from the more westerly
and higher mountains of the coast, or the chain of the
Californian Maritime Alps, the Sierra Nevada de California.
However ill selected the now generally used name of the
Eocky Mountains, to designate the most northerly continu-
ation of the Mexican Central Chain, it does not appear to
me desirable to change it, as has been often proposed, for
that of the Oregon Chain. Although these mountains do
indeed contain the sources of Lewis's, Clark's, and North
Pork, the three chief branches which form the mighty
Oregon, or Columbia Eiver, yet this river also breaks
through the Californian chain of snow-clad Maritime
Alps. The name of Oregon District is also employed
politically and officially for the smaller territory west of the

48 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Coast Chain, where Tort Vancouver and the "*,Yaiahmutti
settlements are situated, and therefore it is the more
desirable not to give the name of Oregon either to the
Central or the Coast Chain. This name is connected with
a most singular mistake of an eminent geographer, M.
Malte Brun : reading on an old Spanish map, " And it is
not yet known, (y aun se ignora) where the source of this
river" (the river now called the Columbia) ' ' is situated,"
he thought he recognised in the word ignora the name of
Oregon. (See my Essai politique sur ia Nouvelle Espagne,
T. ii. p. 314).

The rocks which, where the Columbia breaks through
the Chain, form the Cataracts, mark the continuation of the
Sierra Nevada de California from the 44th to the 47th
degree of latitude. (Fremont, Geographical Memoir upon
Upper California, 1848, p. 6.) This northern continuation
comprises the three colossal summits of Mount Jefferson,
Mount Hood, and Mount St. Helen's, which rise more than
14540 French or 15500 English feet above the level of
the sea. The height of this Coast Chain, or Range, far
exceeds, therefore, that of the Rocky Mountains. " During
a journey of eight months', duration which was made along
the Maritime Alps," says Captain Fremont, in his Report,
p. 274, "we had snowy peaks always in view; we had
surmounted the Rocky Mountains by the South Pass at an
elevation of 7027 (7490 E.) feet, but we found the passes
of the Maritime Alps, which are divided into several parallel
ranges, more than 2000 feet higher/' therefore, only about
1170feet 1247E.) belowthe summit of Etna. It is extremely

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 49

remarkable, and reminds us of the difference between the
eastern and western Cordilleras of Chili, that it is only the
chain of mountains nearest to the sea (the Californian
range), which has still active volcanoes. The conical moun-
tains of Regnier and St. Helen's are seen to emit smoke
almost constantly, and on the 23rd of November 1843,
Mount St. Helen's sent forth a quantity of ashes which
covered the banks of the Columbia for forty miles like snow.
To the volcanic Coast Eange also belong, (in Russian
America in the high north), Mount St. Elias (1980 toises
high, according to La Perouse, and 2792 toises, according
to Malaspina (12660 and 17850 E. feet), and Mount Fail
Weather, (Cerro de Buen Tempo) 2304 toises, or 14732
E. feet high. Both these mountains are supposed to be
still active volcanoes. Fremont's expedition, (which was
important alike for its botanical and geological results),
collected volcanic products, such as scoriaceous basalt,
trachyte, and even obsidian, in the Rocky Mountains, and
found an extinct volcanic crater a little to the east of
Fort Hall, (lat. 43° 2', long. 112° 28 W.) ; but there
are no signs of volcanoes still active, that is to say,
emitting at times lava or ashes. We are not to confound
with such activity the still imperfectly explained phenomenon
of " smoking hills ;" "cotes brulees," or "terrains ardens, "
as they are called by the English settlers, and by natives
speaking French. An accurate observer, M. Nicollet, says,
" ranges of low conical hills are covered with a thick black
smoke almost periodically, and often for two or three
years together. No flames are seen." This phenomenon

VOL. I. E

50 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

shews itself principally in the district of the Upper Missouri,
and still nearer to the eastern declivity of the Eocky Moun
tains, where a river bears the native name of Mankizitah-
Watpa, or the " river of the smoking earth." Scoriacous
pseudo-volcanic products, such as a kind of porcelain jasper,
are found in the vicinity of the "smoking hills." Since
the expedition of Lewis and Clark an opinion has become
prevalent that the Missouri deposits real pumice on its
banks. Fine cellular whitish masses have been confounded
with pumice. Professor Ducatel was disposed to ascribe
this appearance, which was principally observed in the chalk
formation, to a " decomposition of water by sulphuric
pyrites, and to a reaction on beds of lignite." (Compare
Fremont's Keport, p. 164, 184, 187, 193, and 299, with
Nicollet's Illustration of the Hydrographical Basin of the
Upper Mississipi River, 1843, p. 39-41.)

If, in concluding these few general considerations on the
physical geography of North America, we once more turn
our attention to the spaces which separate the two diverging
coast chains from the central chain, we find, in striking
contrast, on the one hand, the arid uninhabited plateau
of above five or six thousand feet elevation, which in
the west intervenes between the central chain and the
Californian Maritime Alps which skirt the Pacific ; and on
the eastern side of the Eocky Mountains, between them and
the Alleghanies, (the highest summits of which, Mount
Washington and Mount Marcy, are, according to Lyell,
6240 and 5066 French, or 6652 and 5400 English feet
above the level of the sea,) the vast, well-watered, and fertile

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 51

low plain or basin of the Mississipi, the greater part of which
is from 400 to 600 French feet above the level of the sea,
or about twice the elevation of the plains of Lombardy.
The hypsometric conformation of this eastern region, i. e. the
altitude of its several parts above the sea, has been elucidated
by the valuable labours of the highly-talented Trench astro-
nomer, Nicollet, of whom science has been deprived by a
too early death. His large and excellent map of the Upper
Mississipi, constructed in the years 1836-1840, is based on
240 astronomically determined latitudes, and 170 barometric
measurements of elevation. The plain which contains the
basin of the Mississipi is one with the Northern Canadian
plain, so that one low region extends from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Arctic Sea. (Compare my Relation Histo-
rique T. iii. p. 284, and Nicollet's Report to the Senate of
the United States, 1843, p. 7 and 57.) Where the plain is
undulating, and where, between 47° and 48° of latitude, low
hills (coteaux des prairies, and coteaux des bois, in the still
un-English nomenclature of the natives) occur in connected
ranges, these ranges and gentle swellings of the ground
divide the waters which flow towards Hudson's Bay from
those which seek the Gulf of Mexico. Such a dividing line
is formed north of Lake Superior by the Missabay Heights,
and more to the west by the " Hauteurs des Terres," in
which were first discovered, in 1832, the true sources of the
Mississipi, one of the largest rivers in the world. The
highest of these ranges of hills hardly attains an elevation
of 1400 to 1500 (1492 to 1599 English) feet. From
St. Louis, a little to the south of the junction of the Mis-

52 STEPPES AND DESEUTS.

souri and the Mississipi, to the mouth of the latter river at
Old French Balize, it has only a fall of 357 (380 English)
feet in an itinerary distance of more than 1280 geographical
miles The surface of Lake Superior is 580 (618 English)
feet above the level of the sea, and its depth near Magdalen
Island is 742 (791 English) feet; its bottom, therefore,
is 162 (173 English) feet below the surface of the ocean.
(Nicollet, p. 99, 125, and 128.)

Beltrami, who separated himself from Major Long's ex-
pedition in 1825, boasted of having discovered the source of
the Mississipi in Lake Cass. The river in the upper part of
its course passes through four lakes, of which Lake Cass is
the second. The uppermost is the Istaca Lake (in lat. 47°
13' and long. 95° 0'), and was first recognised as the true
source of the Mississipi in the expedition of Schoolcraft and
Allen in 1832. This afterwards mighty river is only 17
feet wide and 15 inches deep when it issues from the
singular horse-shoe-shaped Lake of Istaca. It was not until the
scientific expedition of Nicollet, in 1836, that a clear know-
ledge of the localities was obtained and rendered definite by
astronomically determined positions. The height of the
sources of the Mississipi, viz. of the remotest affluent
received by the Lake of Istaca from the dividing ridge or
« Hauteur deTerre," is 1575 (1680 English) feet above the
level of the sea. In the immediate vicinity, and indeed on
the southern slope of the same dividing ridge, is Elbow Lake,
in which the smaller Red River of the North, which after
many windings flows into Hudson's Bay, has its origin. The
Carpathian mountains present similar circumstances in the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 53

proximity and relative positions of the sources of rivers
which send their waters respectively to the Black Sea and to
the Baltic. Twenty small lakes, forming narrow groups to
the south and west of Lake Istaca, have received from M.
Nicollet the names of distinguished European astronomers,
adversaries as well as friends. The map thus becomes a
kind of geographical album, reminding one of the botanical
album of Euiz and Pavon's Mora Peruviana, in which the
names of new genera of plants were adapted to the Court
Calendar, and to the various changes taking place in the
Oficiales de la Secretaria.

To the east of the Mississipi dense forests still partially
prevail ; but to the west of the river there are only Prairies,
in which the buffalo (Bos americanus), and the musk ox
(Bos moschatus), feed in large herds. Both these animals,
(the largest of the New World) serve the wandering
Indians, the Apaches Llaneros and the Apaches Lipanos, for
food. The Assiniboins sometimes kill in a few days from
seven to eight hundred bisons in what are called " bison
parks," artificial enclosures into which the wild herds are
driven. (Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Eeise in das innere
Nord- America, Bd. i. 1839, S. 443.) The American bison,
or buffalo, called by the Mexicans Cibolo, which is frequently
killed merely for the sake of the tongue a much-prized dainty,
is by no means a mere variety of the Aurochs of the Old
Continent ; although some other kinds of animals, as the
elk (Cervus alces) and the reindeer (Cervus tarandus), and
even, in the human race, the short-statured polar man, are
common to the northern parts of both continents, evidencing

54 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

their former long continued connection. The Mexicans
call the European ox in the Aztec dialect " quaquahue," a
horned animal, from quaquahuitl, a horn. Some very large
horns of cattle found in the ancient Mexican buildings not
far from Cuernavaca, to the south-west of the city of Mexico,
appear to me to have belonged to the musk ox. The Cana-
dian bison can be tamed to agricultural labour. It breeds
with the European cattle, but it was long uncertain whether
the hybrid was fruitful. Albert Gallatin, who, before he
appeared in Europe as a distinguished diplomatist, had
obtained by personal inspection great knowledge of the un-
cultivated parts of the United States, assures us that " the
mixed breed was quite common fifty years ago in some of
the north-western counties of Yirginia ; and the cows, the
issue of that mixture, propagated like all others."" " I do
not remember/' he adds, " the grown bison being tamed,
but sometimes young bison calves were caught by dogs, and
were brought up and driven out with the European cows."
At Monongahela all the cattle were for a long time of this
mixed breed : but complaints were made that they gave very
little milk. The favourite food of the bison or buffalo is
Tripsacum dactyloides (called buffalo grass in North Caro-
lina), and an undescribed species of clover nearly allied to
Trifolium repens, and designated by Barton as Trifolium
bisonicum.

I have already called attention elsewhere (Cosmos, vol. ii.
note 455, English ed.) to the circumstance that, according
to a statement of the trustworthy Gomara, (Historia General
de las Indias, cap. 214) there was still living in the six-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 55

teenth century, in the north-west of Mexico, in 40° latitude,
an Indian tribe, whose principal riches consisted in herds of
tame bisons (bueyes con una giba). But notwithstanding
the possibility of taming the bison, notwithstanding the
quantity of milk it yields, and notwithstanding the herds of
lamas in the Cordilleras of Peru, no pastoral life or pastoral
people were found when America was discovered, and there
is no historical evidence of this intermediate stage in the life
of nations ever having existed there. It is worthy of remark
that the American buffalo or bison has exerted an influence
on the progress of geography in trackless mountainous
regions. These animals wander in the winter, in search of
a milder climate, in herds of several thousands to the
south of the Arkansas River. In these migrations their
size and unwieldiness make it difficult for them to pass
over high mountains. When, therefore, a well-trodden
buffalo path is met with, it is advisable to follow it, as being
sure to conduct to the most convenient pass across the
mountains. The best routes through the Cumberland
Mountains, in the south-west parts of Virginia a-nd Ken-
tucky, in the Eocky Mountains between the sources of the
Yellow Stone and the Platte, and between the southern
branch of the Columbia and the Eio Colorado of California,
were thus marked out beforehand by buffalo paths. The
advance of settlement and cultivation has gradually driven
the buffalo from all the Eastern states : they formerly
roamed on the banks of the Mississipi and of the Ohio far
beyond Pittsburg. (Archaeologia Americana, vol. ii., 1836,
p. 139.)

56 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

From the granitic cliffs of Diego Ramirez, — in the deeply
indented and intersected Tierra del Fuego, which contains
on the east silurian schists and on the west the same schists
altered by the metamorphic action of subterranean fire,
(Darwin's Journal of Researches into the Geology and
Natural History of the Countries visited in 1832-1836 by
the Ships Adventure and Beagle, p. 266), — to the North
Polar Sea, the Cordilleras extend in length more than 8000
geographical miles. They are the longest though not the
loftiest chain on our planet ; being raised from a cleft running
in the direction of a meridian from pole to pole, and exceed-
ing in linear distance the interval which in the Old Conti-
nent separates the Pillars of Hercules from the Icy Cape of
the Tchuktches in the north-east of Asia. Where the Andes
divide into several parallel chains, it is remarked that the
ranges nearest the sea are usually those which exhibit most
volcanic activity ; but it has also been observed repeatedly,
that when the phenomena of still active subterranean fire
disappear in one chain, they break out in another chain
running parallel to it. Generally speaking, the volcanic
cones are found in a direction corresponding with that of
the axis of direction of the entire chain ; but in the elevated
highlands of Mexico the active volcanoes are placed along a
transverse cleft running from sea to sea in the east and west
direction. (Humboldt, Essai Politique, T. ii. p. 173.)
Where, by the elevation of mountain masses in the
ancient corrugation or folding of the crust of the earth,
access has been opened to the molten interior, that inte-
rior continues to act, through the medium of the cleft,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 57

upon the upheaved wall-like mass. That which we now call
a mountain chain has not arrived at once at its present
state: rocks, very different in the order of succession in
reference to age, are found superimposed upon each other,
and have penetrated to the surface by early formed channels.
The various nature of the formations is due to the outpour-
ing and elevation of eruptive rocks, as well as to the slow
and complicated process of metamorphic action taking place
in clefts filled with vapours and favourable to the conduction
of heat.

For a long time past, from 1830 to 1848, the following
have been regarded as the culminating or highest points of
the Cordilleras of the New Continent.

The Nevado de Sorata, also called Ancohuma or
Tusubaya, (S. lat. 15° 52') a little to the south of the
village of Sorata or Esquibel, in the eastern Bolivia
Eange : elevation 3949 toises, or 23692 Parisian, or
25250 English feet.

The Nevado de Dliman^ west of the Mission of
Yrupana (S. lat. 16° 38') in the same mountain range
as Sorata : elevation 3753 toises, or 22518 Parisian, or
24000 English feet.

The Chimborazo (S. lat. 1° 27') in the province of
Quito : elevation 3350 toises, or 20100 Parisian, or
21423 English feet.

The Sorata and Illimani were first measured by a dis-
tinguished geologist, Mr. Pentland, in 1827, and also in
1838. Since the publication, in June 1848A of his great
map of the basin of the lake of Titbaca, we know that the
above-mentioned elevations of these two mountains are

58 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

respectively 3960 and 2851 English feet, too great.
The map gives to the Sorata 21286, and to the Illimam
21149 English feet. A more exact calculation of the tri-
gonometrical operations of 1838 has led Mr. Pentland to
these new results. There are, according to him, in the
western Cordillera four peaks of from 21700 to 22350
English feet. The highest of these, the peak of Sahama,
would thus be 926 English feet higher than the Chim-
borazo, and but 850 English feet lower than the Yolcano
of Acongagua, measured by the expedition of the Beagle
(Fitz Roy's Narrative, Yol. ii. p. 481.)

(6) p. 3. — " The Desert near the basaltic mountains
of Harudsh"

Near the Egyptian Natron Lakes, (which in the time of
Strabo had not yet been divided into six reservoirs), there
is a range of hills which rises steeply on the northern side,
and runs from east to west past Eezzan, where it finally
appears to join the chain of the Atlas. It divides in
north-eastern Africa, as the Atlas does in north-western
Africa, the inhabited maritime Lybia of Herodotus from
the land of the Berbers, or Biledulgerid, abounding in wild
animals. From the limits of Middle Egypt the whole region
south of the 30th degree of North latitude is a sea of sand,
in which are dispersed islands, or Oases, containing springs
of water and a flourishing vegetation. The number of these
Oases, of which the ancients only reckoned three, and which
Strabo compared to the spots on a panther's skin, has
been considerably augmented by the discoveries of modern
travellers. The third Oasis of the ancients, now called

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 59

Siwah, was the Nemos of Ammon ; a residence of priests,
a resting place for caravans, and the site of the temple
of the horned Ammon and the supposed periodically cool
fountain of the Sun. The ruins of Ummibida, (Omm-
Beydah), belong incontestibly to the fortified caravanserai
at the temple of Ammon, and therefore to the most ancient
monuments which have come down to us from the early
dawn of civilization. (Caillaud, Yoyage a Syouah, p. 14 ;
Ideler in den Fundgruben des Orients, Bd. iv. S. 399-
411).

The word Oasis is Egyptian, and synonymous with
Auasis and Hyasis (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 130, lib. xvii.
p. 813, Gas.; Herod, lib. iii. cap. 26, p. 207, Wessel).
Abulfeda calls the Oases, el-Wah. In the later times of
the Caesars, malefactors were sent to the Oases; being
banished to these islands in the sea of sand, as the Spaniards
and the English have sent criminals to the Ealklands or
to New Holland. Escape by the ocean is almost easier
than through the desert. The fertility of the Oases is
subject to diminution by the invasion of sand.

The small mountain-range of Harudsh is said to consist
of basaltic hills of grotesque form (Ritter's Afrika, 1822,
S. 885, 988, 993, and 1003). It is the Mons Ater of
Pliny; and its western extremity or continuation, called
the Soudah mountains, has been explored by my unfortunate
friend, the adventurous traveller Ritchie. This eruption
of basalt in tertiary limestone, rows of hills rising abruptly
from dike-like fissures, appears to be analogous to the
outbreak of basalt in the Yicentine territory. Nature
often repeats the same phenomena in the most distant

60 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

parts of the earth. In the limestone formations of the
"white Harudsh" (Harudje el-Abiad), which perhaps
belong to the old chalk, Hornemann found an immense
number of fossil heads of fish. Ritchie and Lyon remarked
that the basalt of the Soudah mountains, like that of the
Monte Berico, was in many places intimately mixed with
carbonate of lime, — a phenomenon probably connected with
eruption through limestone strata. Lyon's map even mentions
dolomite in the neighbourhood. Modern mineralogists have
found syenite and greenstone in Egypt, but not basalt.
Possibly the material of some of the ancient Egyptian vases,
which are occasionally found of true basalt, may have been
taken from these western mountains. May " Obsidius lapis"
also have been found there ? or are basalt and obsidian to be
sought for near the Red Sea ? The strip of volcanic or
eruptive formations of the Harudsh, on the margin of the
African desert, reminds the geologist of the augitic vesicular
amygdaloid, phonolite, and greenstone porpyhry, which are
only found at the northern and western boundaries of the
Steppes of Venezuela and of the plains of the Arkansas,
as it were on the hills of the ancient coast line. (Humboldt,
Relation Historique, torn. ii. p. 142 ; Long's Expedition to
the Rocky Mountains, vol. ii. pp. 91 and 405.)

(7) p. 3. — " When suddenly deserted by the east wind
of the tropics in a sea covered with weed"

It is a remarkable phenomenon, well known among
sailors, that in the vicinity of the African coast (between
the Canaries and the Cape de Verde Islands, and particu-
larly between Cape Bojador and the mouth of the Senegal),

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 61

a west wind often takes the place of the general east or
trade-wind of the tropics. It is the wide expanse of the
desert of Sahara which causes this westerly wind. The air
over the heated sandy plain becomes rarefied and ascends,
the air from the sea rushes in to supply the void so formed,
and thus there sometimes arises a west wind, adverse to
ships bound to the American coast, which are made in this
manner to feel the vicinity of the heat-radiating desert
without even seeing the continent to which it belongs.
The changes of land and sea breezes, which blow alternately
at certain hours of the day or night on all coasts, are due
to the same causes.

The accumulation of sea-weed in the neighbourhood of
the African coast has been often spoken of by ancient
writers. The locality of this accumulation is a problem
which is intimately connected with our conjectures respecting
the extent of Phoenician navigation. The Periplus, which
has been ascribed to Scylax of Caryanda, and which,
according to the researches of Niebuhr and Letronne, was
very probably compiled in the time of Philip of Macedon,
describes beyond Cerne a quantity of fucus forming a weed-
covered sea — a kind of lf Mar de Sargasso ;" but the locality
indicated appears to me to differ very much from that
assigned in the work entitled " De Mirabilibus Auscultationi-
bus," which long bore, unduly, the great name of Aristotle.
(Compare Scyl. Gary and. Peripl. in Hudson, vol. ii. p. 53,
with Aristoti de Mirab. Auscult. in opp. omnia ex. rec.
Bekkeri, p. 844, § 136.) The pseudo-Aristotle says,
" Phoenician mariners, driven by the east wind, came in four
days' sail from Gades to a part where they found the sea

62 STEPPES AND DESEETS.

covered with reeds and sea-weed (Spvov *atyvKoe.) The
sea-weed is uncovered at ebb and covered at flood tide."
Is he not here speaking of a shallow place between the
34° and 36° of latitude ? Has a shoal dissappeared in
consequence of volcanic eruption? Vobonne speaks of
rocks north of Madeira. (Compare also Edrisi, Geog.
Nub., 1619, p. 157.) In Scylax it is said, "The sea beyond
Cerne is unnavigable on account of its great shallowness,
its muddiness, and tfce great quantity of sea grasses. Tire
sea grass lies a span thick, and is full of points at the top,
so that it pricks." The sea-weed found between Cerne, —
(the Phoenician station for laden vessels, Gaulea, or, according
to Gosselin, the small island of Fedallah, on the north-
western coast of Mauritania), — and Cape de Verde, does
not now by any means form a great sea meadow, or con-
nected tract of fucus, a "mare herbidum," such as exists
beyond the Azores. In the poetic description of the coast
by Festus Avienus, (Ora Maritima, v. 109, 122, 388, and
408), in the composition of which, as Avienus himself says,
(v. 412) he availed himself of the journals of Phoenician
ships, the obstacle presented by the sea- weed is referred to
in a very circumstantial manner ; but its site is placed much
farther north, towards lerne, the " Sacred Island."

Sic nnlla late flabra propellunt ratem,
Sic segnis humor aequoris pigri stupet.
Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites
Exstare fucum, et ssepe virgnlti vice
Retinere puppim ....
Hsec inter undas nmlta csespitem jacet,
Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 63

In remarking that the fucus and the mud or mire,
, the shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual calms,
are always spoken of by the ancients as characteristics of
the western ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, one is
disposed, more particularly on account of the mention of
the calms ,to ascribe something to Punic artifice, — to the
desire of a great trading people to deter others, by the
apprehension of dangers and difficulties, from entering into
competition with them in western navigation and commerce.
But even in the genuine writings of Aristotle (Meteorol. ii.
p. 1, 14,) he maintains this same opinion of the absence of
wind in those regions, and seeks the explanation of what
he erroneously supposes to be a fact of observation, but
which is more properly a fabulous mariner's tale, in an
hypothesis concerning the depth of the sea. In reality,
the stormy sea between Gades and the islands of the Blest or
Fortunate Islands, (between Cadix and the Canaries), is very
unlike the sea farther to the south between the tropics,
where the gentle trade winds blow, and which is called
very characteristically by the Spaniards, el Golfo de las
Damas, the Ladies' Gulf. (Acosta Histoiia natural y moral
de las Iiidias, lib. iii. cap. 4.)

From very careful researches by myself, and from the
comparison of the logs or journals of many English and
French vessels, I infer that the old and indefinite expression,
Mar de Sargasso, includes two banks of fucus, of which
the greater and easternmost one, of a lengthened shape, is
situated between the parallels of 19° and 34° N. lat., in a
meridian of 7 degrees to the west of the Island of

64 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Corvo, one of the Azores ; while the lesser and western-
most bank, of a roundish form, is situated between the
Bermudas and the Bahamas, (lat. 25°-31°, long. 66°-74°.)
The longer axis of the small bank which is crossed by
ships going from Baxo de Plata (Caye d' Argent, Silver
Cay) on the north of St. Domingo, to the Bermudas,
appears to have a N. 60° E. direction. A transverse band
of Eucus natans, running in an East and West direction
between the parallels of 25° and 30°, connects the greater and
lesser banks. I have had the gratification of seeing these in-
ferences approved by my honoured friend Major Kennell, and
adopted by him in his great work on Currents, where he has
further supported and confirmed them by many new and addi-
tional observations. (Compare Humboldt, Relation Histo-
rique, torn. i. p. 202, and Examen critique, torn. iii. p. 68-99,
with E/ennelTs Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic
Ocean, 1832, p. 184.) The two groups of sea-weed,
included together with the transverse connecting band
under the old general name of the Sargasso Sea, occupy
altogether a space exceeding six or seven times the area of
Germany.

Thus it is the vegetation of the ocean which offers the
most remarkable example of an assemblage of "social
plants" of a single species. On terra firma, the savannahs
or prairies, or grassy plains of America, the heaths (ericeta),
and the forests of the North of Europe and Asia, consisting
of coniferous trees, birches, and willows, offer a less degree
of uniformity than do those thalassophytes. Our heaths
show, in the north, in addition to the prevailing Calluna

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 65

vulgaris, Erica tetralix, E. ciliaris, and E. cinerea; and
in the south, Erica arborea, E. scoparia, and E. medit-
terranea. The uniformity of the aspect offered by the Eucus
natans is greater than that of any other assemblage or
association of plants. Oviedo calls the fucus banks
"meadows/' praderias de yerva. Considering that the
island of Elores was discovered in 1452, by Pedro Velasco,
a native of the Spanish port of Palos, by following the
flight of certain birds from the island of Eayal, it seems
almost impossible, seeing the proximity of the great fucus
bank of Corvo and Flores, that a part of these oceanic
meadows should not have been seen before Columbus, by
Portuguese ships driven by storms to the westward. Yet
the astonishment of the companions of Columbus in 1492,
when surrounded by sea- weed uninterruptedly from the ]6th
of September to the 8th of October, shews that the magni-
tude of the phenomenon at least was previously unknown
to the sailors. The anxieties excited by the accumulation
of sea-weed, and the murmurs of his companions in reference
thereto, are not indeed mentioned by Columbus in the
extracts from the ship's journal given by Las Casas. He
merely speaks of the complaints and murmurs respecting
the danger to be feared from the weak but constant East
winds. It is only the son, Fernando Colon, who, in
writing his father's life, endeavoured to depict the fears
of the sailors in a dramatic manner.

According to my researches, Columbus crossed the great
fucus bank in 1492, in lat. 28|-0, and in 1493, in lat. 37°,
both times in the long, of from 38° to 41° W. This is

VOL. I. T

66 STEPPES AXD DESERTS.

'deducible with tolerable certainty from Columbus's re-
corded estimation of the ship's rate, and the " distance daily
sailed over ;" derived indeed, not from casting the log, bnt
from data afforded by the running out of half-hour sand-
glasses (ampolletas). The first certain and definite mention
of a log (catena della poppa) which I have been able to
discover, is in the year 1521, in Pigafetta's journal of Ma-
gellan's Voyage round the "World, (Cosmos, vol. ii. p.
259, and Note 405, English ed.) The determination of the
ship's place, while Columbus was engaged in traversing the
great meadows of sea-weed, is the more important, because we
learn from it that for three centuries and a half the situation
of this great accumulation of thalassophytes, whether resulting
from the local character of the bottom of the sea, or
from the direction of the- Gulf stream, has remained the
same. Such evidences of the permanency of great natural
phenomena arrest the attention of the physical inquirer
with double force, when they present themselves in the ever-
moving oceanic element. Although the limits of the fucus
banks oscillate considerably, in correspondence with the
variations of the strength and direction of the prevailing
winds, yet we may still in the middle of the 19th century
take the meridian of 41° W. from Paris (38° 38' W. from
Greenwich) as the principal axis of the " great bank." In
the vivid imagination of Columbus, the idea of the posi-
tion of this bank was intimately connected with the
great physical line of demarcation, which, according to him,
divided the globe into two parts, with the changes of
magnetic variation, and with climatic relations. Columbus,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 67

when uncertain respecting his longitude, (February 1493), di-
rected himself by the appearance of the first floating streamers
of weed (de la primera yerva) on the eastern margin of the
great Corvo bank. The physical line of demarcation was,
by the powerful influence of the Admiral, converted on the
4th of May, 1493, into a political line, being made the
celebrated " line of demarcation" between the Spanish and
Portuguese rights of possession. (Compare my Examen
Critique, torn. iii. p. 64-99, and Cosmos, English ed. vol. ii.
p. 279-280.)

(8) p. 3t_« The Nomadic Tilbos and Tuaricks"

These two nations inhabit the deserts between Bornou,
Fezzan, and Lower Egypt. They were first made known to
us with some exactness by Hornemann's and Lyon's travels.
The Tibbos or Tibbous roam through the eastern, and the
Tuaticks (Tueregs) through the western, parts of the great
desert. The first are called by the other tribes, from being
in continual movement, " birds." . The Tuaricks are distin-
guished into those of Aghadez and those of Tagazi. They
are often engaged as conductors of caravans, and in trade.
Their language is the same as that of the Berbers ; and they
belong unquestionably to the number of the primitive
Lybian nations. The Tuaricks present a remarkable phy-
siological phenomenon. Different tribes among them are,
according to the climate, white, yellowish, and even almost
black; but all are without woolly hair or Negro features.
(Exploration scientifique de TAlgerie, T. ii. p. 343.)

68 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(9) p. 4.— " The Ship of the Desert."

In oriental poems, the camel is called the land-ship, or
the ship of the Desert (Sefynet-el-badyet) ; Chardin, Voyages,
nouv. 6d. par Langles, 1811, T. iii. p. 376.

But the camel is not merely the carrier of the desert, and
the link which, rendering commnnication between different
countries possible, connects them with each other : he is
also, as Carl Bitter has shewn in his excellent memoir on
the sphere of diffusion of these animals, the principal and
essential condition of the nomadic life of nations in the
patriarchal stage of national development, in the hot parts
of our planet where rain is either altogether wanting or very
infrequent. No animal's life is so closely associated by
natural bonds with a particular stage of the developement of
the life of man, — a connection historically established for
several thousand years, — as the life of the camel among the
Bedouin tribes" (Asien, Bd. viii. Abth. i. 1847, S. 610 und
758). <f The camel was entirely unknown to the cultivated
Carthaginian nation through all the centuries of their
flourishing existence, until the destruction of their city.
The Marusians first brought it into military use, in
the train of armies, in Western Lybia, in the times
of the Csesars; perhaps in consequence of its employ-
ment in commercial operations in the valley of the Nile
by the Ptolemies. The Guanches, the inhabitants of the
Canary Islands and probably related to the Berber race,
were not acquainted with the camel before the 1 5th century,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 69

when it was introduced by Norman conquerors and settlers.
In the probably very limited communication of the Guanches
with the Coast of Africa, the small size of the boats would
prevent the transport of large animals. The true Berber
race, diffused throughout the interior of Northern Africa,
and to which the Tibbos and Tuaricks, as already men-
tioned, belong, owes doubtless to the use of the camel
throughout the Lybian desert and its Oases, not only the
advantages of intercommunication, but also the preservation
of its national existence to the present day. On the other
hand, the negro races never, of their own accord, made any
use of the camel ; it was only in company with the conquer-
ing expeditions and proselyting missions of the Bedouins,
carrying their prophet's doctrines over the whole of Northern
Africa, that the useful animal of theNedjid, of theNabatheans,
and of all the countries inhabited by Aramean races, spread
to the westward and was introduced among the black popu
lation. The Goths took camels as early as the fourth
century to the Lower Istros (the Danube), and the Ghazne-
vides conveyed them in much larger numbers as far as India
and the banks of the Ganges/' "We must distinguish two.
epochs in the diffusion of the camel throughout the northern
part of the African continent; one under the Ptolemies,
operating through Gyrene on the whole of the north-west of
Africa; and the Mohammedan epoch of the conquering
Arabs.-

It has long been a question, whether those domestic
animals which have been the earliest companions of mankind —
oxen, sheep, dogs, and camels — are still to be met with in a

70 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

state of original wildness. The Hiongnu, in Eastern
Asia, belong to the nations who earliest tamed and trained
wild camels as domestic animals. The compiler of the
great Chinese work, Si-yu-wen-kien-lo, (Historia Regionum
occidentalium, quae Si-yu vocantur, visu et auditu cognita-
rum,) affirms that in the middle of the 18th century wild
camels, as well as wild horses and wild asses, still wandered
in East Turkestan. Hadji Chalfa, in his Turkish Geo-
graphy, written in the 17th century, speaks of the frequent
chase of the wild camel in the high plains of Kashgar,
Turfan, and Khotan. Schott translates, from a Chinese
author, Ma-dschi, that wild camels are to be found in the
countries to the north of China and west of the Hoang-ho,
in Ho-si or Tangut. Cuvier alone (Eegne Animal, T. i. p.
257), doubts the present existence of wild camels in the
interior of Asia. He believes they have merely " become
wild;" because Calmucks, and others having Buddhistic reli-
gious affinities with them, set camels and other animals at
liberty, in order " to acquire to themselves merit for the other
world." According to Greek witnesses of the times of
Artemidorus and Agatharchides of Cnidus, the Ailanitic
Gulf of the Nabatheans was the home of the wild Arabian
camel. (Bitter's Asien, Bd. viii. s. 670, 672, and 746.)
The discovery of fossil camel bones of the ancient world by
Captain Cautley and Doctor Falconer, in 1834, in the sub-
Himalaya range of the Sewalik hills, is peculiarly deserving
of notice. These bones were found with other ancient bones
of mastodons, of true elephants, of giraffes, and of a
gigantic land tortoise (Colossochelys), twelve feet in length

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 71

and six feet in height. (Humboldt, Cosmos, Engl. ed. vol.
i. p. 268.) This camel of the Ancient World has received
the name of Camelus sivalensis, but does not show any con-
siderable difference from the still living Egyptian and
Eactrian camels with one and two humps. Forty camels have
very recently been introduced into Java, having been brought
there from Teneriffe. (Singapore Journal, of the Indian
Archipelago, 1847, p. 206.) The first experiment has been
made in Samarang. In like manner, reindeer have only
been introduced into Iceland from Norway in the course
of the last century. They were not found there when the
island was settled, notwithstanding the proximity to East
Greenland, and the existence of floating masses of ice. (Sar-
torius von Waltershausen physisch-geographische Skizze von
Island, 1847, S. 41.)

(10) p. 4.)— "Between the Altai and the Kuen-lun."

The great highland, or, as it is commonly called, the mountain
plateau of Asia, which includes the lesser Bucharia, Songarei,
Thibet, Tangut, and the Mogul country of the Chalcas and
Olotes, is situated between the 36th and 48th degrees of
latitude, and the meridians of 81° and 118° E. long. It is
an erroneous view to represent this part of the interior of Asia
as a single undivided mountainous gibbosity, continuous like
the elevated plains of Quito and Mexico, and elevated from
seven to nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. That
there is not in this sense any undivided mountain plateau in
the interior of Asia, has already been shewn by me in my
" Researches respecting the Mountains of Northern India."

72 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(Humboldt, Premier Memoire sur les Montagues de Flnde,
in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, T. iii. 1816, p.
303 ; Second Memoire, T. xiv. 1820, p. 5-55.)

My views concerning the geographical range of plants,
and the mean degree of temperature requisite for certain
kinds of cultivation, had early led me to entertain consider-
able doubts as to the continuity of a great Tartarian plateau
between the Himalaya and the Altai. "Writers continued to
characterise this plateau as it had been described by Hippo-
crates (De ^Ere et Aquis, § xcvi. p. 74), as " the high and
naked plains of Scythia, which, without being crowned with
mountains, rise and extend to beneath the constellation
of the Bear." Klaproth has the undeniable merit of
having been the first to make us acquainted with the true
position, extent, and direction of two great and entirely dis-
tinct chains of mountains — the Kuen-liin and the Thian-
schan, in a part of Asia which is better entitled to the name
of "central" than Kashmeer, Baltistan, and the Sacred
Lakes of Thibet, (the Manasa and the Ravanahrada) . The
importance of the Celestial Mountains, the Thian-schan,
had indeed been already surmised by Pallas, without his
being aware of their volcanic nature ; but this highly-gifted
investigator of nature, hampered by the then prevailing
hypothesis of a dogmatic and fantastic geology, firmly
believing in " chains of mountains radiating from a centre,"
saw in the Bogdo Oola (the Mons Augustus, or culminating
point of the Thian-schan) such a "central node, from
whence all the Asiatic mountain chains diverge in rays, and
which dominates over all the rest of the continent \"

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 73

The erroneous idea of a single vast elevated plain occupy-
ing the whole of central Asia, the " Plateau de la Tartarie,"
took its rise in Prance, in the latter half of the 18th cen-
tury. It was the result of historical combinations, and of a
not sufficiently attentive study of the writings of the cele-
brated Yenetian traveller, as well as of the naive relations of
those diplomatic monks who, in the 13th and 14th centuries,
(thanks to the unity and extent of the Mogul empire at that
time) were able to traverse almost the whole of the interior
of the continent, from the ports of Syria and of the Caspian
Sea to the shores of the Pacific on the east coast of China.
If a more exact acquaintance with the language and ancient
literature of India had dated farther back among us than
half a century, the hypothesis of this central plateau, occupy-
ing the wide space between the Himalaya and the south of
Siberia, would no doubt have had adduced in its support an
ancient and venerable authority from that source. The
poem of the Mahabharata appears, in the geographical
fragment Bliischmakanda, to describe " Meru" not so much
as a mountain as an enormous elevation of the land, which
supplies with water at once the sources of the Ganges, those
of the Bhadrasoma (Irtysh), and those of the forked Oxus.
These physico-geographical views were intermingled in
Europe with ideas of other kinds, and with mythical reveries
relating to the origin of mankind. It was said that the ele-
vated regions from which the waters first retreated, (geologists
in general were long averse to the theory of elevation), must
also have received the first germs of civilisation. Hebraizing
systems of geology, and views connected with the Deluge

74 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

and supported by local traditions, favoured these assumptions.
The intimate connection between time and space, between
the beginnings of social order and the plastic character of
the surface of the earth, lent to the supposed " uninterrupted
Plateau of Tartary" a peculiar importance, and an almost
moral interest. Acquisitions of positive knowledge, the
late matured fruit of scientific travels and direct measure-
ments, as well as of a fundamental study of Asiatic languages
and literature especially those of China, have gradually
demonstrated the inaccuracies and exaggerations of those
wild hypotheses. The mountain plains (opoiredia) of Central
Asia are no longer regarded as the cradle of civilization and
the primitive seat of all arts and sciences. The ancient
nation of Bailly's Atlantis, happily described by d'Alembert
as " having taught us everything but their own name and
existence," has vanished. The supposed inhabitants of the
Oceanic Atlantis had already been treated, in the time of
Posidoiiius, in a no less derisive manner. (Strabo, lib. ii.
p. 102; and lib. xiii. p. 598, Casaub.)

A plateau of considerable but very unequal elevation,
having the names of Gobi, Scha-mo (sand desert), Scha-ho
(sand river), and Hanhai, -runs in a SSW.-NNE. direc-
tion, with little interruption, from Eastern Thibet towards
the mountain knot of Kentei south of Lake Baikal.
This swelling of the ground is probably anterior to the
elevation of the mountain chains by which it is intersected ;
it is situated, as already remarked, between 79° and 116°
long, from Paris, (81° and 118° E. from Greenwich).
Measured at right angles to its longitudinal axis, its breadth

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 75

i

- is, in the south between Ladak, Gertop, aiid H'lassa, (the
seat of the great Lama,) 720 geographical miles; between
Hami in the Celestial Mountains, and the great bend of the
Hoang-ho near the In-schan chain, hardly 480 ; and in
the north, between the Khauggai, where the great city of
Karakhorum once stood, and the chain of Khin-gan-Petscha,
which runs north and south (in the part of the Gobi tra-
versed in travelling from Kiachta by Urga to Pekin) 760
geographical miles. The whole extent of this swelling
ground, which must be carefully distinguished from the far
more elevated mountain range to the east, may be approxi-
mately estimated, taking its inflections into account, at
about three times the area of France. The map of the
mountain ranges and volcanoes of Central Asia (Carte der
Bergketten und Vulkane von Central- Asien), constructed
by nie in 1839, but not published until 1843, shows in the
clearest manner the hypsometric relations between the
mountain ranges and the Gobi plateau. It was founded on
the critical employment of all the astronomical determina-
tions accessible to me, and on a vast amount of orographic
description, in which Chinese literature is beyond measure
rich, examined at my request by Klaproth and Stanislas
Julien. My map marks the mean direction and the height
of the mountain chains, and represents the leading features
of the interior of the continent of Asia, from 30° to 60°
degrees of north latitude, and between the meridians of
Kherson and Pekin, It differs materially from any pre-
viously published map.

The Chinese have enjoyed a threefold advantage towards

76 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

•

the collection of so great an amount of orographic data in the
highlands of Asia, and more especially in the regions (hitherto
so little known in the west), north and south of the Celes-
tial mountains, between the In-schan, the mountain lake
Khuku-noor, and the banks of the Hi and the Tarim.
The three advantages I allude to are, — the military expedi-
tions towards the west, (under the dynasties of Han and
Thang 122 years before our era, and again in the ninth
century when conquerors advanced as far as Ferghana and to
the borders of the Caspian), together with the more peaceful
conquests of Buddhistic pilgrims; — the religious interest
attaching to certain lofty mountain summits on account of
sacrifices to be periodically offered there; — and the early
and general use of the compass in giving the directions of
mountains and of rivers. The knowledge and use of
the " South pointing" of the magnetic needle twelve cen-
turies before our era, has given to the orographic and
hydrographic descriptions of countries by the Chinese, a
great superiority over the descriptions of the same kind
which Greek or Eoman writers have bequeathed to us,
and which are besides extremely few. The acute and
sagacious Strabo, was alike imperfectly acquainted with the
direction of the Pyrenees, and with those of the Alps and of the
Appennines. (Compare Strabo, lib. ii. p. 71 and 128; lib.
iii. p. 137 ; lib. iv. p. 199 and 202 ; lib. v. p. 211, Casaub.)
To the lowlands belong almost the whole of Northern Asia
to the north-west of the volcanic chain of the Thian-schan ; —
the Steppes to the north of the Altai and of the Sayan
chain ; — the countries which extend from the mountains of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 77

Bolor, or Bulyt-Tagh, (" cloud mountains" in the Uigurian
dialect) which follow a north and south direction, and
from the upper Oxus, (whose sources were found by the
Buddhistic pilgrims Hiuen-thsang and Song-yun in 518
and 629, by Marco Polo in 1277, and by Lieutenant
"Wood in 1838, in the Pamer Lake, Sir-i-kol, Lake
Victoria), towards the Caspian j and from Tenghir or the
Balkhash Lake through the Kirghis Steppe, towards the
sea of Aral and the southern extremity of the Ural moun-
tains. As compared with high plains of 6,000 to 10,000
feet above the level of the sea, it may well be permitted to
use the expression of " lowlands" for flats of little more
than 200 to 1200 feet of elevation. The lowest of the
last two numbers corresponds nearly to the altitude of
the town of Mannheim, and the highest to that of Geneva
and Tubingen. If the word plateau, so often misemployed
in modern works on geography, is to have its use extended
to elevations which hardly present any sensible difference in
climate and vegetation, the indefiniteness of the expres-
sions "highlands and lowlands," which are only relative
terms, will deprive physical geography of the means of
x expressing the idea of the connection between elevation
and climate, between the profile or relief of the ground
and the decrease of temperature. When T found myself
in Chinese Dzungarei, between the boundary of Siberia
and Lake Dsaisang, at an equal distance from the Icy Sea
and from the mouth of the Ganges, I might well consider
myself in Central Asia. The barometer, however, soon
taught me that the plains through which the Upper
Irtysh flows, between Ustkamenogorsk and the Chinese

78 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Dzungarian Post, Chonimailachu, (sheep-bleating,) are
scarcely raised 850, or at the most 1170, feet above the level
of the sea. Pansner's older barometric measurements
(which, however, were not published until after my expedi-
tion), are confirmed by mine. Both refute the hypothesis
of Chappe, relative to the supposed high elevation of the banks
of the Irtysh, in Southern Siberia ; an hypothesis based on
estimations of river declivities. Even further to the East,
Lake Baikal is only 222 toises, or 1420 English feet, above
the level of the sea.

In order to connect the idea of the relation of
the terms lowlands and highlands and of the various
gradations in the height of elevated plains or undulating
grounds, with actual examples ascertained by measurement,
I have subjoined a table, forming an ascending scale of such
districts in different parts of the Globe. What I have
said above respecting the mean height of those Asiatic
p ains, which 1 have termed lowlands, may be compared
with the following numbers : —

Toises. English feet.

Plateau of Auvergne 170 1087

" of Bavaria 260 1663

" of Castille ' 350 2239

" of Mysore 460 2942

" of Caraccas 480 3070

" of Popayan 900 5756

" round Lake Tzana (in Abyssinia) . . . 950 6076

" of the Orange River (in South Africa) 1000 6395

" of Axum (in Abyssinia) 1100 7034

" of Mexico 1170 7483

" of Quito 1490 9528

" of the Province de los Pastos 1600 10231

" round Lake Titiaea 2010 12853

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 79

No portion of the so-called Desert of Gobi (parts of
which contain fine pastures) has been so thoroughly
explored in respect to the differences of elevation as the
zone, of nearly 600 geographical miles in breadth, between
the sources of the Selenga and the great Wall of China.
A very exact series of barometric level! ings was executed
under the auspices of the Academy of St. Petersburgh by
two distinguished Savans, the astronomer George Fuss, and
the botanist Bunge. In the year 1832 they accompanied
the mission of Greek monks to Pekin, to establish there
one of the magnetic stations recommended by me. The
mean height of this part of Gobi does not amount, as had
been too hastily inferred from the measurement of neigh-
bouring summits by the Jesuits Gerbillon and Yerbiest
to from 7500 to 8000 French (8000 to 8500 English)
feet, but only to little more than half that height, or
barely 4000 French or 4264 English feet. Between Erghi,
Durma, and Scharaburguna, the ground is only 2400 French,
or 2558 English, feet above the level of the sea, or hardly
300 French (320 English) feet higher than the plateau of
Madrid. Erghi is situated midway, in lat. 45° 31'., long.
111° 26' E. from Greenwich. There is here a depression
of more than 240 miles in breadth, in a SW. and NE.
direction. An ancient Mogul tradition marks it as the
bottom of a former inland sea. There are found in it
reeds and saline plants, mostly of the same kinds as those
on the low shores of the Caspian. In this central part of
the desert there are small salt lakes, from which salt is
carried to China. According to a singular opinion very

80 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

prevalent among the Moguls, the ocean will one day return
and establish its empire anew in Gobi. One is reminded
of the Chinese tradition of the bitter lake, in the interior
of Siberia, mentioned by me in another work. (Hum-
boldt, Asie Centrale, torn. ii. p. 141; Klaproth, Asia
Polyglotta, p. 232.) The valley or basin of Kashmeer,
so enthusiastically extolled by Bernier, and but too mo-
derately praised by Victor Jacquemont, has also given oc-
casion to great hypsometric exaggerations. By a careful
barometrical. measurement, Jacquemont found the height
of the Wulur Lake in the valley of Kashmeer, not far
from the chief city Sirinagur, 836 toises, or 5346 Eng-
lish feet. Uncertain determinations by the boiling point
of water gave Baron Carl von Hugel a result of 910, and
Lieutenant Cunningham only 790 toises. (Compare my Asie
Centrale, torn. iii. p. 310, with the Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, vol. x. 1 841 , p. 1 14 .) Kashmeer, — respect-
ing which, in Germany .particularly, so much interest has been
felt, but the delightfulness of whose climate is considerably
impaired by four months of winter snow in the streets of
Sirinagur (Carl von Hugel, Kaschmir, Bd. ii. S. 196), — is not
situated, as is often supposed, upon the ridge of the Himalaya,
but is a true cauldron-shaped valley (Kesselthal, Caldera,) oil
the southern declivity of those mountains. On the south-
west, where the rampart-like elevation of the Pir Panjal
separates it from the Punjaub, the snow-covered summits
are crowned, according to Vigne, with formations of
basalt and amygdaloid. The latter formation has received
from the natives the characteristic name of "schischak

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 81

deyu," marked by the devil's small-pox. (Yigne, Travels
in Kashmeer, 1842, vol. i. p. 237-293.) The beauty of
its vegetation has from the earliest times been very differently
described, according as the visitor came from the rich and
luxuriant vegetation of India, or from the northern regions
of Turkestan, Samarcand, and Ferghana.

It is also only very recently that clearer views have been
obtained respecting the elevation of Thibet ; the level of the
plateau having long been most uncritically confounded with
the summits which rise from it. Thibet occupies the
interval between the two great chains of the Himalaya and
the Kuen-liin, forming the raised ground of the valley
between them. It is divided from east to west, both by
the natives and by Chinese geographers, into three portions.
Upper Thibet, with its capital city EPlassa, probably 1500
toises (9590 English feet) above the level of the sea; —
Middle Thibet, with the town of Leh or Ladak (1563 toises,
or 9995 English feet) ;— and Little Thibet, or Baltistan,
called the Thibet of Apricots, (Sari Boutan), in which are
situated Iskardo (985 toises, or 6300 English feet), Gilgit,
and south of Iskardo but on the left bank of the Indus,
the plateau of Deotsuh, measured by Vigne, and found to
be 1873 toises, or 11,977 English feet. On examining all
the notices that we possess respecting the three Thibets, (and
which will have received in the present year a rich augmen-
tation by the boundary expedition under the auspices of
the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie), we soon become con-
vinced that the region between the Himalaya and the Kuen-
liin is no unbroken plain or table land, but that it is inter-

VOL. I. G

82 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

sected by mountain groups, undoubtedly belonging to wholly
distinct systems of elevation. There are, properly speaking,
very few plains ; the most considerable are those between
Gertop, Daba, Schang-thung (Shepherd's Plain) the native
country of the Shawl-goat, and Schipke (1634 toises, 10,450
English feet) ; — those round Ladak, which have an elevation
of 2100 toises, or 13430 English feet, and must not be
confounded with the depression in which the town is
situated; — and lastly, the plateau of the Sacred Lakes
Manasa and Ravanahrada (probably 2345 toises), which
was visited so early as 1625 by Pater Antonio de Andrada.
Other parts are entirely filled with crowded mountainous
elevations, " rising," as a recent traveller expresses it, " like
the waves of a vast ocean." Along the rivers, the Indus, the
Sutlej, and the Yaru-dzangbo-tschu which was formerly
regarded as identical with the Brahma~-putra, points have
been measured which are only between 1050 and 1400
toises (6714 and 8952 English feet) above the level of the
sea ; so also with respect to the Thibetian villages of Pangi,
Kunawur, Kelu, and Murung. (Humboldt, Asie Centrale,
T. iii. p. 281-325.) From many carefully collected mea-
surements of elevation 1 think I may conclude that the plateau
of Thibet, between 73° and 85° E. long., does not reach a
mean height of 1800 toises (11510 English feet) ; this is
hardly equal to the height of the fertile plain of Caxamarca
in Peru, and is 211 and 337 toises (1350 and 2154 English
feet) less than the height of the plateau of Titicaca, and the
street pavement of the Upper Town of Potosi (2137 toises,
13,665 English feet).

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 83

That outside of the Thibetian highlands and of the Gobi,
the boundaries of which have been denned above, there are
in Asia, between the parallels of 37° and 48°, considerable
depressions and even true lowlands, where one bound-
less uninterrupted plateau was formerly imagined to exist,
is shewn by the cultivation of plants which cannot thrive
without a certain degree of heat. An attentive study of the
travels of Marco Polo, in which the cultivation of the vine
and the production of cotton in northern latitudes are
spoken of, had long called the attention of the acute Klaproth
to this point. In a Chinese work, entitled " Information
respecting the recently-subdued Barbarians (Sin-kiang-wai-
tan-ki-lio)," it is said, " the country of Aksu, somewhat to
the south of the Celestial Mountains (the Thian-schan), near
the rivers which form the great Tarim-gol, produces grapes,
pomegranates, and numberless other excellent fruits ; also
cotton (Gossypium religiosum), which covers the fields like
yellow clouds. In the summer the heat is exceedingly great,
and in winter there is here, as at Turfan, neither severe cold
nor heavy snow." The district round Khotan, Kashgar,
and Yarkand, still pays its tribute in home-grcwn cotton as
it did in the time of Marco Polo. (II Milione di Marco
Polo, pubbl. dal Conte Baldelli, T. i. p. 32 and 87.) In
the Oasis of Hami (Khamil), above 200 miles east of Aksu,
orange trees, pomegranates, and vines whose fruit is of a
superior quality, grow and flourish.

The products of cultivation which are thus noticed
imply the existence of only a small degree of elevation, and
that over extensive districts. At so great a distance from

84 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

any coast, and in those easterly meridians where the cold of
winter is known to exceed that of corresponding latitudes
nearer our own part of the world, a plateau which should be
as high as Madrid or Munich might indeed have very hot
summers, but would hardly have, in 4 '3° and 44° latitude,
extremely mild winters with scarcely any snow. Near the
Caspian, 83 English feet below the level of the Black Sea,
at Astrachan in 46° 21' lat., I saw the cultivation of the
vine greatly favoured by a high degree of summer heat ; but
the winter cold is there from —20° to —25° Cent. (—4° to
— 13° Eahr.) It is therefore necessary to protect the vines
after November, by sinking them deep in the earth. Plants
which live, as we may say, only in the summer, as the vine,
the cotton bush, rice, and melons, may indeed be cultivated
with success between the latitudes of 40° and 44° on plains
of more than 500 toises (3197 English feet) elevation, being
favoured by the powerful radiant heat ; but how could the
pomegranate trees of Aksu, and the orange trees of Kami,
whose fruit Pere Grosier extolled as distinguished for its good-
ness, bear the cold of the long and severe winter which would
be the necessary consequence of a considerable elevation of the
land ? (Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 48-52, and 429.) Carl Zim-
merman (in the learned Analysis of his " Karte von Inner
Asien," ] 841, S. 99) has made it appear extremely probable
that the Tarim depression, i. e. the desert between the moun-
tain chains of the Thian-schan and the Kuen-liin, where the
Steppe river Tarim-gol empties itself into the Lake of Lop,
which used to be described as an alpine lake, is hardly 1200
(1279 English) feet above the level of the sea, or only twice

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 85

the height of Prague. Sir Alexander Burnes also assigns
to that of Bokhara only an elevation of 1190 English
feet. It is earnestly to be desired, that all doubt respecting
the elevation of the plateaux of middle Asia, south of 45°
of latitude, should finally be set at rest by direct barometric
measurements, or by determinations of the boiling point of
water made with more care than is usually given to them.
All our calculations respecting the difference between the
limits of perpetual snow, and the maximum elevation of vine
cultivation in different climates, rest at present on too
complex and uncertain elements.

In order to rectify in the smallest space that which was
said in the last edition of the present work, relatively to the
great mountain systems which intersect the interior of
Asia, I subjoin the following general review. We begin
with the four parallel chains, which follow with tolerable
regularity an east and west direction, and are connected
with each other at a few detached points by transverse
elevations. Differences of direction indicate, as in the
Alps of western Europe, a difference in the epoch of eleva-
tion. After the four parallel chains (the Altai, the Thian-
schan, the Kuen-liin, and the Himalaya), we have to
notice chains following, the direction of meridians, viz.
the Ural, the Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese chains,
which, with the great bend of the Thibetian and Assamo-
Bermese Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The
Ural divides a part of Europe but little elevated above
the level of the sea from a part of Asia similarly circum-
stanced. The latter was called by Herodotus, (ed. Schweig-

86 TEPPES ATsD DESERTS.

haiiser, T. v. p. 204) and even as early as Pherecydes of
Syros, a Scythian or Siberian Europe, including all the
countries to the north of the Caspian and of the laxartes ;
in this view it would be a continuation of Europe " pro-
longed to the north of Asia."

1 . The great mountain system of the Altai, (the ' ' gold
mountains" of Menander of Byzantium, an historical
writer who lived as early as the 7th century, the Altai-alin
of the Moguls, and the Kin-schan of the Chinese), forms
the southern boundary of the great Siberian lowlands ; and
running between 50° and 52-|-0 of north latitude, extends
from the rich silver mines of the Snake Mountains, and the con-
fluence of the Uba and the Irtysh, to the meridian of Lake
Baikal. The divisions and names of the "Great" and the
" Little Altai," taken from an obscure passage of Abulghasi,
are to be altogether avoided. (Asie Centrale,T. i. p. 247.)
The mountain system of the Altai comprehends (a) the Altai
proper, or Kolywanski Altai, the whole of which is under
the Russian sceptre ; it is west of the transverse opening of
the Telezki Lake, which follows the direction of the meridian ;
and in ante-historic times probably formed the eastern shore
of the great arm of the sea; by which, in the direction of the
still existing groups of lakes, Aksakal-Barbi and Sary-Kupa
(Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 138), the Aralo-Caspian basin was
connected with the Icy sea : — (b) East of the Telezki chain
which follows the direction of the meridian, the Sayani,
Tangnu, and Ulangom or Malakha chains, all running
tolerably parallel with each other and in an east and west
direction. The Tangnu, which sinks down and terminates

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 87

(

in the basin of the Selenga, has from very ancient times
formed a boundary between the Turkish race to the south
and the Kirghis (Hakas, identical with Set/ecu) in the north.
(Jacob Grimm, Gesch. derdeutschen Sprache, 1848, Th. i.
S. 227.) It is the original seat of the Samoieds or Soyotes,
who wandered as far as the Icy Sea, and who were long
regarded in Europe as a nation belonging exclusively to the
coasts of the Polar Sea. The highest snow-clad summits of
the Altai of Kolywan are the Bielucha and the Katunia-
Pillars. The height of the latter is about that of Etna.
The Daurian highland, to which the mountain knot of
Kemtei belongs, and on the eastern side of which is the
Jablonoi Chrebet, divides the depressions of the Baikal
and the Amur.

2. The mountain system of the Thian-schan, or Celestial
Mountains, the Tengri-tagh of the Turks (Tukiu) and of
the kindred race of the Hiongnu, is eight times as long, in
an east and west direction, as the Pyrenees. Beyond, — i. e.
west of its intersection with the transverse or north and
south chain of the Bolor and Kosuyrt, the Thian-schan bears
the names of Asferah and Aktagh, is rich in metals, and has
open fissures, which emit hot vapours, luminous at night,
and which are used for obtaining sal-ammoniac. (Asie
Centrale, T. ii. p. 18-20.) East of the transverse Bolor and
Kosyurt chain, there follow successively in the Thian-schan, —
the Kashgar Pass (Kaschgar-dawan) ; the Glacier Pass of
Djeparle, which leads to Kutch and Aksu in the Tarini basin ;
the volcano of Pe-schan, which sent forth fire and streams of
lava at least as late as the middle of the seventh century ; the

88 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

great snow-covered massive elevation Bogdo-Oola ; the Sol-
fatara of Urumsti, which furnishes sulphur and sal-ammoniac
(nao-scha), and is situated in a coal district ; the still active
volcano of Turfan (or volcano of Ho-tscheu or Bischbalik),
almost midway between the meridians of Turfan (Kune-
Turpan), and of Pidjan. The volcanic eruptions of the
Thian-schan chain, recorded by Chinese historians, reach
as far back as the year 89, A.D., when the Hiongnu
of the sources of the Irtysh were pursued by the Chinese
army as far as Kutch and Kharaschar (Klaproth, Tableau
hist, de 1'Asie, p. 108). The Chinese General, Teu-hian,
surmounted the Thian-schan, and saw "the Fire Moun-
tains which send out masses of molten rock that flow for
many Li."

The great distance from the sea of the volcanoes of the
interior of Asia is a remarkable and solitary phenomenon.
Abel Remusat, in a letter to Cordier (Annales des Mines, T.
v. 1820, p. 137), first directed the attention of geologists to
this fact. The distance, for example, in the case of the volcano
of Pe-schan, to the north, or to the Icy Sea at the mouth of the
Obi, is 1528 geographical miles ; to the south, or to the
mouths of the Indus and the Ganges, 1512 geographical
miles ; to the west, 1360 geographical miles to the Caspian
in the Gulf of Karaboghaz ; and to the east, 1020 geogra-
phical miles to the shores of the sea of Aral. The active
volcanoes of the New "World were previously supposed to
offer the most remarkable instances of such phenomena at a
great distance from the sea ; their distance, however, is only
132 geographical miles in the case of the volcano of Popo-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 89

catepetl in Mexico, and only 92, 104, and 156 geogra-
phical miles in those of the South American volcanoes Sangai,
Tolima, and de la Eragua, respectively. I exclude from
these statements all extinct volcanoes, and all trachytic moun-
tains which have no permanent connection with the interior of
the earth. (Asie Ceutrale, T. ii. p. 16-55, 69-77, and 341-
356.) East of the volcano of Turf an, and of the fertile
Oasis of Hami rich in fine fruit, the chain of the Thian-
schan gives place to the great elevated tract of Gobi which
follows a S.W. and N.E. direction. This interruption of
the mountain chain, caused by the transverse intersection of
the Gobi, continues for more than 9J degrees of longitude ;
but beyond it the mountains recommence in the somewhat
more southerly chain of the In-schan, or the Silver Moun-
tains, running (north of the Pe-tscheli) from west to east
almost to the shores of the Pacific near Pekin, and forming
a continuation of the Thian-schan. As T have viewed the
In-schan as an easterly prolongation (beyond the interruption
of the Gobi) of the cleft above which the Thian-schan stands,so
one might possibly view the Caucasus as a westerly prolonga-
tion of the same, beyond the great basin of the Aral and Caspian
Seas or the depression of Turan . The mean parallel of latitude
or axis of elevation of the Thian-schan oscillates between
40|-0 and 43° N. lat. ; that of the Caucasus, according to
the map of the Russian Etat-Major (running rather E.S.E.
and W.N.W.), is between 41° and 44° N. lat. (Baron von
Meyendorff, in the Bulletin de la Societe geologique de
Prance, T. ix. 1837-1838, p. 230.) Of the four parallel
chains which traverse Asia from east to west, the Thian-

DO STEPPES ASD DESERTS.

schan is the only one in which no /summits have yet had
their elevation above the sea determined by measurement.

3. The mountain system of the Kuen-liin (Kurkun or
Kulkun), if we include in it the Hindu-Coosh and its western
prolongation in the Persian Elbourz and Demavend, is, next
to the American Cordillera of the Andes, the longest line of
elevation on the surface of our planet. Where the north-
and -south chain of Bolor intersects the Kuen-liin at right
angles, the latter takes the name of the Thsung-ling (Onion
Mountains), which is also given to a part of the Bolor at the
eastern angle of intersection. The Kuen-liin, forming the
northern boundary of Thibet, runs very regularly in an east
and west direction, in the latitude of 36°. In the meridian
of H'lassa an interruption takes place from the great moun-
tain knot which surrounds the alpine lake of Khuku-noor,
the Sing-so-hai, or Starry Sea, so celebrated in the mythical
geography of the Chinese. The somewhat more northerly
chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan. may almost be re-
garded as an easterly prolongation of the Thian-schan.
They extend to the Chinese wall near Liang-tscheu. West
of the intersection of the Bolor and Kuen-liin (the Thsung-
ling) I think I have been the first to shew (Asie Centrale,
T. i. p. 23, and 118-159 ; T. ii. p. 431-434 and 465) that
the corresponding direction of the axes of the Kuen-liin and
the Hindu-Coosh (both being east and west, whereas the
Himalaya is south-east and north-west) makes it reasonable
to regard the Hindu-Coosh as a continuation, not of the
Himalaya, but of the Kuen-liin. From the Taurus in Lycia
to Kafiristan, through an extent of 45 degrees of longitude,

ANNOTATIONS ANE ADDITIONS. 91

this chain follows the parallel of Rhodes, or the diaphragm
of Dicearchus. The grand geognostical view of Erastos-
thenes (Strabo, Lib. ii. p. 68; Lib. xi. p. 490 and 511;
and Lib. xv. p. 689), which is farther developed by Marinus
of Tyre, and Ptolemy, and according to which " the con-
tinuation of the Taurus in Lycia extends across the whole
of Asia to India, in one and the same direction," appears to
have been partly founded on statements which reached the
Persians and Indians from the Punjaub. "The Brahmins
affirm," says Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian Topo-
graphy, (Mountfaugon, Collectio nova Patrum, T. ii. p. 137)
" that a line drawn from Tzinitza (Thinse) across Persia and
Romania, exactly cuts the middle of the inhabited earth." It
is deserving of notice that Eratosthenes had so early remarked
that this longest axis of elevation in the Old Continent, in
the parallels of 35-^° and 36°, points directly through the
basin (or depression) of the Mediterranean to the Pillars of
Hercules. (Compare Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 23 and 122-
138; T. ii. p. 430434, with Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 222 and
438, p. 188, and note 292,Engl. ed.) The easternmost part of
the Hindu-Coosh is the Paropanisus of the ancients, the
Indian Caucasus of the companions of Alexander. The now
generally used term of Hindu-Coosh, belongs, as may be seen
from the Travels of the Arab Ibn Batuia (English version,
p. 97), to a single mountain pass on which many Indian
slaves often perished from cold. The Kuen-liin, like the
Thian-schan, shews igneous outbreaks or eruptions at many
hundred miles from the sea. Flames, visible at a great
distance, issue from a avcity in the Schin-khieu Mountain.

92 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 427 and 483, where I have followed
the text of Yuen-thong-ki, translated by my friend Stanislas
Julien.) The highest summit measured in the Hindu-
Coosh, north-west of Jellalabad, is 3164 toises above the
sea (20132 English feet) ; to the west, towards Herat, the
chain sinks to 400 toises (2558 English feet), until, north
of Teheran, it rises again to a height of 2295 toises (14675
English feet) in the volcano of Demavend.

4. The mountain system of the Himalaya. The normal
direction of this system is east and west when followed from
81° to 97° E. long, from Greenwich, or through more than
fifteen degrees of longitude from the colossal Dhawalagiri
(4390 toises, 28071 English feet) to the breaking through
of the long-problematical Dzangbo-tschu river (the Irawaddy,
according to Dalrymple and Klaproth), and to the chains
running north and south which cover the whole of Western
China, and in the provinces of Sse-tschuan, Hu-kuang, and
Kuang-si form the great mountain group of the sources of
the Kiang. The next highest culminating point to the
Dhawalagiri, of this east and west part of the Himalaya, is
not, as has been hitherto supposed, the eastern peak of the
Schamalari, but the Kinchinjinga. This mountain is
situated in the meridian of Sikhim, between Bootan and
Nepaul, and between the Schamalari (3750 ? toises, 23980
English feet) and the Dhawalagiri : its height is 4406 toises,
or 26438 Parisian, or 28174 English feet. It was first
measured accurately by trigonometrical operations in the pre-
sent year, and as the account of this measurement received
by me from India says decidedly, " that a new determination

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 93

of the Dhawalagiri leaves^to the latter the first rank among
all the snow-capped mountains of the Himalaya," the
height of the Dhawalagiri must necessarily be greater than
that of 4390 toises, or 26340 Parisian, 28071 English feet,
hitherto ascribed to it. (Letter of the accomplished bota-
nist of Sir James Ross's Antarctic Expedition, Dr. Joseph
Hooker, written from Dorjiling, July 25, 1848.) The
turning point in the direction of the axis of the Himalaya
range is not far from the Dhawalagiri, in 79° E. long, from
Paris (81° 22' Greenwich). From thence to the westward
the Himalaya no longer runs east and west, but from SB.
to NW., connecting itself, as a great cross vein, between
Mozuffer-abad and Gilgit south of Kafiristan, with a
part of the Hindu-Coosh. Such a bend or change in the
direction or strike of the axis of elevation of the Himalaya
(from E-W. to SE-NW.), doubtless points, as in the
western part of our European Alps, to a difference in the
age or epoch of elevation. The course of the Upper Indus,
from the sacred lakes Manasa and Eavana-hrada (at an
elevation of 2345 toises, 14995 English feet) in the vici-
nity of which the great river rises, to Iskardo and to the
plateau of Deo-tsuh, (at an elevation of 2032 toises, 12993
English feet) measured by Yigne, follows in the Thibetian
highlands the same north-westerly direction as the Hima-
laya. Here is the summit of the Djawahir, long since well
measured and known to be 4027 toises (25750 English
feet) in elevation, and the valley of Kashmeer, where at an
elevation of only 836 toises, (5346 English feet), the Wulur
Lake freezes every winter, and, from the perpetual calm, no
wave ever curls its surface.

94 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Having thus described the four great mountain systems
of Asia, which in their normal geognostic character are
chains coinciding with parallels of latitude, I have next to
speak of the series of elevations coinciding nearly with meri-
dians, (or more precisely, having a SSE.-NNW. direction),
which, from Cape Comorin opposite to the Island of Ceylon
to the Icy Sea, alternate between the meridians of 66° and
77° E. long, from Greenwich. To this system, of which
the alternations remind us of faults in veins, belong the
Ghauts, the Soliman chain, the Paralasa, the Bolor, and the
Ural. The interruptions of the series of elevations are so
arranged that, beside their alternate position in respect to
longitude, each new chain begins in a degree of latitude to
which the preceding chain had not quite reached. The im-
portance which the Greeks (although probably not before
the second century) attached to these chains induced Aga-
thodemon and Ptolemy (Tab. vii. and viii.) to represent to
themselves the Bolor, under the name of Imaus, as an axis
of elevation extending as far as 62° N. lat. into the low
basin of the Lower Irtisch and the Obi. (Asie Centraie,
T. i. p. 138, 154, and 198; T. ii. p. 367.)

As the perpendicular elevation of mountain summits
above the level of the sea (unimportant as in the eyes of the
geologist the circumstance of the greater or lesser corruga-
tion of the crust of the earth may be), is still, like all that is
difficult of attainment, an object of popular curiosity, the
following historical notice of the gradual progress of hypso-
metric knowledge may here find a suitable place. When I
returned to Europe in 1804 after a four years' absence, not
a single Asiatic snowy summit either in the Himalaya, the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 95

Ilindu-Coosh, or the Caucasus, had been measured with any
exactness ; and I could not therefore compare my determi-
nations of the height of perpetual snow in the Cordilleras of
Quito, or the mountains of Mexico, with any corresponding
determinations in the East. The important journey of
Turner, Davis, and Saunders, to the highlands of Thibet,
does indeed belong to the year 1783, but Colebrooke justly
remarks, that the elevation given by Turner to the Schama-
lari (lat. 28° 5', long. 89° 30', a little to the north of Tassi-
sudan) rests on foundations as slight as those of the so-called
measurements of the heights seen from Patna and the
Kafiristan by Colonel Crawford and Lieutenant Macartney.
(Compare Turner, in the Asiatic .Researches, vol. xii. p. 234,
with Elphinstone's Account of the Kingdom of Caubul,
1815, p. 95, and Francis Hamilton, Account of Nepal,
1819, p. 92.) The excellent observations and writings of
"Webb, Hodgson, Herbert, and the brothers Gerard, have
thrown great and certain light on the elevation of the co-
lossal summits of the Himalaya; yet, in 1808, the hypso-
metric knowledge of this great Indian chain was still so
uncertain that Webb wrote to Colebrooke : " The height of
the Himalaya still remains a problem. I find, indeed, that
the summits visible from the high plain of Eohilcund are
21000 English feet above that plain, but we do not know
the absolute height above the sea."

It was not until the beginning of the year 1820 that it
began to be reported in Europe, that not only were there in
the Himalaya, summits much higher than those of the
Cordilleras, but also that Webb had seen in the Pass of Niti,

96 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

and Mooicroft in the Thibetian plateau of Daba and the
Sacred Lakes, fine pastures and flourishing fields of corn, at
altitudes far exceeding the height of Mont Blanc. These
accounts were received in England with much incredulity,
and were met by doubts respecting the influence of refrac-
tion. I have shown the groundlessness of these doubts in
two memoirs (Sur les Montagues de Flnde), printed in the
Annales de Chimie et de Physique. The Tyrolese Jesuit, P.
Tiefen thaler, who in 1766 penetrated into the provinces of
Kemaun and Nepal, had already divined the importance of
the Dhawalagiri. We read on his map, "Montes Albi,
qui Indis Dolaghir, nive obsiti." Captain Webb always uses
the same name. Until the measurements of the Djawahir
(lat. 30° 22', long, 79° 58', altitude 4027 toises, or 25750
English feet) and of the Dhawalagiri (lat. 28° 40', long. 83°
21', altitude 4390? toises, 28072 English feet) were made
known in Europe, the Chimborazo (3350 toises, or 21421
English feet), according to my trigonometric measurement,
(Recueil d' Observations astronomiques, T. i. p. 73) was still
everywhere regarded as the highest summit on the surface of
the earth. The Himalaya now appeared, according as the
comparison was made with the Djawahir or the Dhawalagiri,
676 toises (4323 English feet), or 1040 toises (6650
English feet), higher than the Chimborazo. Pentland's
South American travels, in the years 1827 and 1838, fixed
attention (Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, 1830,
p. 320 and 323) on two snowy summits of Upper Peru,
east of the Lake of Titicaca, which were supposed to surpass
the height of the Chimborazo respectively by 598 and 403

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 07

toises, (3824 and 25?TEnglish feet.) I have .remarked
above, pp. 53-54, that the latest calculation of the measure-
ments of the Sorata and Illimani shews this view to be in-
correct. The Dhawalagiri (on the declivity of which, in the
valley of the Ghandaki, the Salagrana Ammonites, so cele-
brated among the Brahmins as symbols of one of the incar-
nations of Vishnu, are collected) therefore still shews a
difference between the culminating points of the Old and
the New Continents of more than 6200 Parisian, or 6608
English feet.

The question has been raised, whether there may not
exist behind the southernmost more or less perfectly mea-
sured chain, other still greater elevations. Colonel George
Lloyd, who in 1840 edited the important observations
of Captain Alexander Gerard and his brother, entertains an
opinion that in the part of the Himalaya which he calls
somewhat vaguely " the Tartaric chain," (meaning therefore
in north Thibet towards the Kuen-liin, and perhaps in Kailasa
of the sacred lakes, or beyond Leh) there are summits of
from 29000 to 30000 English -feet,— one or two thousand
feet higher therefore than the Dawalagiri. (Lloyd and
Gerard, Tour in the Himalaya, 1840, vol. i. p. 143 and 312;
Asie Centrale, T. iii. p. 324.) So long as actual measure-
ments are wanting, one cannot decide respecting such possibi-
lities; as the indication, from which the natives of Quito, long
before the arrival of Bouguer and La Condamine, recognised
the superior altitude of the Chimborazo (namely, from the
portion of its height above the region of perpetual snow
being greater than in any of the other mountains), might

VOL. I. H

98 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

prove very deceptive in the temperate zone of Thibet, where
radiation is so active in the table-land, and where the lower
limit of perpetual snow does not form a regular line at an
equal elevation, as it does in the tropics. The greatest
elevation above the level of the sea ever attained by human
beings on the declivity of the Himalaya, is 3035 toises, or
18210 Parisian, or 19409 English feet, reached by Captain
Gerard, with seven barometers, on the mountain of Tarhi-
gang, a little to the north-west of Schipke. (Colebrooke, in
the Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. vi. p. 411.)
This happens to be exactly the same height as that reached
by myself on the 23rd of June, 1802, and thirty years later
by my friend Boussingault, on the 16th of December, 1831,
on the declivity of the Chimborazo. The unattained summit
of the Tarhigang is, however, 197 toises, or 1260 English
feet, higher than that of the Chimborazo.

The passes across the Himalaya, leading from Hindostan
into Chinese Tartary, or rather into Western Thibet, more
particularly between the rivers of Buspa and Schipke or
Langzing Khampa, are from 2400 to 2900 toises, or 15346
to 18544 English feet. In the chain of the Andes I found
the pass of Assuay, between Quito and Cuenca on the
Ladera de Cadlud, having a similar elevation, being 2428
toises, or 35526 English feet, high. A great part of the
mountain plains of the interior of Asia would be buried
throughout the year in perpetual snow and ice, if it were
not, that by the great radiation of heat from the Thibetian
plateau, by the constant serenity of the sky, by the rarity ot
the formation of snow in the dry atmosphere, and by the pov -

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 99

erful solar heat peculiar to the eastern continental climate, the
limit of perpetual snow is wonderfully raised on the northern
slope of the Himalaya, — perhaps to 2600 toises, or 16625
English feet above the level of the sea. Fields of barley
(Hordeum hexastichon) are seen in Kunawur up to 2300
toises, or 14707 English feet ; and another variety of barley
called Ooa, and allied to Hordeum cceleste, even much higher.
Wheat succeeds extremely well in the Thibetian highlands
up to 1880 toises, or 12022 English feet. On the northern
declivity of the Himalaya, Captain Gerard found the upper
limit of the higher birch woods ascend to 2200 toises, 14068
English feet ; and small bushes which serve the inhabitants
for fuel to warm their huts, attain, in the latitude of
30|° and 31° of north latitude, a height of 2650 toises
(16945 English feet), or almost 200 toises (1279 English
feet) higher than the limit of perpetual snow under the
equator. From the data hitherto collected it would follow,
that we may take the lower limit of perpetual snow on the
northern side of the Himalaya, on the average, and in round
numbers, at 2600 toises, or about 16600 English feet;
whilst on the southern declivity of the Himalaya the snow-
line sinks to 2030 toises, or about 13000 English feet.

But for this remarkable distribution of temperature in the
upper strata of the atmosphere, the mountain plain of
Western Thibet would be uninhabitable to the millions who
dwell there. (Compare my Examination of the Limit of
Perpetual Snow on the two declivities of the Himalaya, in
the Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 435-437 ; T. iii. p. 281-326,

100 STEPPES AND DESEKTS.

and in Kosmos, Engl. ed. vol. i. note 403 ; S. 483 of the
original.)

A letter which I have just received from India from Dr.
Joseph Hooker, who is engaged in meteorological and
geological researches, as well as those connected with the
geography of plants, says : " Mr. E odgson, who we regard
here as the geographer best acquainted with the hypsometric
relations of the snow ranges, completely recognises the
correctness of your statement in the third part of the
Asie Centrale, respecting the reason of the inequality in the
height of the limit of perpetual snow on the northern and
southern declivities of the Himalaya. In the ' trans Sutlej
region' in 36° lat. we often saw the snow limit only com-
mence at an altitude of 20000 English feet, while in the
passes south of the Brahmaputra, between Assam and Bur-
man, in 27° lat., where the most southern Asiatic snowy
mountains are situated, the limit of perpetual snow sinks
to 15000 English feet/" I believe we ought to distinguish
between the extreme and the mean heights, but in both we
see manifested in the clearest manner the formerly contested
differences between the Thibetian and the Indian declivities.

My statements respecting the mean
height of the Snow-line in the Hima-
laya. (Asie Centrale, torn. iii. p. 326.)

Paris feet. Eng. feet.
Northern declivity 15600 ... 16626

Extremes according to Dr. Joseph
Hooker's letter.

Paris feet. Eng.feet.
Northern declivity 18764 . . . 20000

Southern •'« 12180... 12981 i Southern " 14073... 15000

Difference 3420 3645 Difference 4691 5000

The local differences vary still more, as may be seen from

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 101

the list of extremes given in my Asie Centrale, T. iii. p.
295. Alexander Gerard saw the snow limit ascend, on the
Thibetian declivity of the Himalaya, to 19200 Parisian feet
(20465 English); and on the southern Indian declivity,
Jacquemont once saw it, north of Cursali on the Jumnotri,
even as low as 10800 Parisian (11,510 English) feet.

(n) p. 6. — "A brown Pastoral Race, the Hiongnu"

The Hiongnu (Hiong-nou), who Deguignes, and with
him many historians, long considered to be the Huns,
inhabited that vast region of Tartary which is bounded on
the east by Uo-leang-ho (the present Mantschu dominion),
on the south by the Chinese wall, on the west by the
U-siun territory, and on the north by the country of the
Eleuthes. But the Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and
the Huns to the Finnish or Uralian race. The northern
Huns, a rude pastoral people, unacquainted with agriculture,
were dark brown (sunburnt) ; the southern Huns or Haja-
telah, (called by the Byzantines Euthalites or Nepthalites,
and dwelling along the eastern shore of the Caspian), had a
fairer complexion. The latter cultivated the ground,, and
possessed towns. They are often called the white, or fair
Huns, and d'Herbelot even declares them to be Indo-
Scythians. On Punu, the Leader or Tanju of the Huns,
and on the great drought and famine which, about 46 A.D.,
caused a part of the nation to migrate northwards, (see
Deguignes, Histoire gen. des Huns, des Turcs, &c., 1756,
T. i. pt, i. p. 217 ; pt. ii. p. Ill, 125, 223, 447.) All the
accounts of the Huns taken from the above-mentioned

102 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

celebrated work have been subjected to a learned and strict
examination by Klaproth. According to the result of this
research the Hiongnu belong to the widely diffused Turkish
races of the Altai and Tangnu Mountains. The name
Hiongnu, even in the third century before the Christian era,
was a general name for the Ti, Thu-kiu or Turks, in the
north and north-west of China. The southern Hiongnu over-
came the Chinese, and in conjunction with them destroyed
the empire of the northern Hiongnu. These latter fled to
the west, and this flight seems to have given the first
impulse to the migration of nations in Middle Asia. The
Huns, who were long confounded with the Hiongnu, (as the
Uigures with thellgures and the Hungarians), belonged, ac-
cording to Klaproth, to the Finnish race of the Ural moun-
tains between Europe and Asia, a race which was variously
mingled with Germans, Turks, and Samoieds. (Klaproth, Asia
Polyglotta, p. 183 and 211; Tableaux Historiques de TAsie,
p. 102 and 109.) The Huns (Olwot) are first named by Dio-
nysius Perigetes, a writer who was able to obtain more accu-
rate information respecting the interior of Asia, because, as a
learned man born at Charax on the Arabian Gulf, Augustus
had sent him back to the East to accompany thither his
adopted son Caius Agrippa. Ptolemy, a century later,
writes the word (Koi/voi) with a strong aspiration, which, as
St. Martin observes, is found again in the geographical
name of Chunigard.

(12) p. 7. — "No carved Stone"
On the banks of the Orinoco near Caicara where the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 103

forest region joins the plain, we have indeed found repre-
sentations of the/sun, and figures of animals, cut on
the rocks : but in the Llanos themselves no traces of these
rude memorials of earlier inhabitants have been discovered.
It is to be regretted that we have not received any more
complete and certain information respecting a monument
which was sent to France to Count Maurepas, and which,
according to Kalm, had been found by M. de Yerandrier in
the Prairies of Canada 900 miles west of Montreal, in the
course of an expedition intended to reach the Pacific.
(Kalrn's Reise, Th. iii. S. 416.) This traveller found in the
middle of the plain enormous masses of stone, placed in an
upright position by the hand of man, and on one of them
was something which was taken to be a Tartar inscription.
(Archseologia : or Miscellaneous Tracts, published by the
Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. viii., 1787, p. 304.)
How is it that so important a monument has remained
unexamined? Can it really have contained alphabetical
writing ? or is it not far more probably a pictorial history,
like the supposed Phoenician inscription on the bank of the
Taunton River? I consider it, however, very probable
that these plains were once traversed by civilised nations :
pyramidal sepulchral mounds, and entrenchments of extra-
ordinary length, found in various places between the P,A>cky
Mountains and the Alleghanies, and on which Squier and
Davis (in the " Ancient Monuments of the Mississipi
Valley") are now throwing a new light, appear to confirm this
supposition. (Relation Hist., T. iii. p. 155.) Verandrier had
been sent on his expedition by the Chevalier de Beauharnois,

104 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

the French Governor-general of Canada, in 1746. Several
Jesuits in the city of Quebec assured Kalm that they had
themselves had the supposed inscription in their hands : it
was engraved upon a small tablet which had been let into a
pillar of cut stone, in which position it was found. I have
asked several of my friends in Trance to search out this
monument, in case it should really be in existence in the
collection of Count Maurepas, but without success. I
find older, but equally doubtful, statements as to the
existence of alphabetical inscriptions belonging to the primi-
tive nations of America, in Pedro de Ciega de Leon,
Chronica del Peru, P. i. cap. 87 (losa con letras en los
edificios de Yinaque); in Garcia,, Origen de los Indios,
1607, lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 258; and in Columbus' s Journal
of his first voyage, in Navarrete, Viages de los Espanoles,
T. i. p. 67. M. de Yerandrier moreover affirmed, (and
earlier travellers had also thought they had observed
the same thing), that in the prairies of Western Canada,
throughout entire days' journeys, traces of the ploughshare
were discoverable ; but the total ignorance of the primitive
nations of America with regard to this agricultural imple-
ment, the want of draft cattle, and the great extent of
ground over which the supposed furrows are found, — all
lead me to conjecture that this singular appearance of a
ploughed field has been produced by some effect of water
on the surface of the earth.

(13j p. 7. — "Like an arm of the Sea."
The great Steppe, wJiich extends from east to west from

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 105

the mouth of the ^Orinoco to the snowy mountains of
Merida, turns ta^he south in the 8th degree of latitude,
filling the space between the eastern declivity of the high
mountains of New Granada, and the Orinoco, the course
of which is, in this part, from south to north. This latter
portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the
Yichada, the Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley
of the Amazons with the valley of the Lower Orinoco.
The word Paramo, which I often employ in these pages,
signifies in Spanish America all those mountainous regions
which are elevated from 1800 to 2200 toises above the
level of the sea (11500 to 14000 English feet in round num-
bers), and in which an ungenial, rough, and misty climate
prevails. Hail and snow fall daily for several hours in the
upper Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply of moisture
to the alpine plants ; a supply not arising from a large
absolute quantity of aqueous vapour in these high regions,
but from the frequency of showers, (hail and snow being so
termed as well as rain), produced by the rapidly changing
currents of air, and the variations of the electric tension.
The arborescent vegetation of these regions is low and
spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and
myrtle-leaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are
adorned with fresh and evergreen foliage. Escalloma tubai,
Escallonia myrtilloides, Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Wein-
mannias, Erezieras, Gualtherias, and Andromeda reticulata,
may be regarded as representatives of the physiognomy of
this vegetation. To the south of the town of Santa Ee da
Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz ; a lonely mountain

106 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

group, in which, according to Indian tradition, vast
treasures are buried. The torrent which flows under
the remarkable natural bridge of the rocky ravine of
Icononzo rises in this Paramo. In my Latin memoir
entitled " Be distribution geographica Plantarum se-
cundein cosli temperiem et altitudinem montium, 1817,"
I have sought to characterise those mountain regions :
"Altitudine 1700-1900 hexapod. Asperriinse solitudines,
quae a colonis hispanis uno nomine Paramos appel-
lantur, tempestatum vicissitudinibus mire obnoxise, ad quas
solutse et emollitse defluunt nives; ventorum flatibus ac
nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa regio, quse seque
per diem et per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi luce fere
nunquam calefacta. Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat
magna3 civitates, ut Micuipampa Peruvianorum, ubi thermo-
metrum centes. meridie inter 5° et 8°, noctu — 0°.4 consistere
vidi; Huancavelica, propter cinnabaris venas celebrata,
ubi altitudine 1835 hexap. fere totum per annum temperies
mensis Martii Parish's." (Humboldt de distrib. geogr.
Plant, p. 104.)

f14) p. 8. — " The Andes and the eastern mountains
send forth detached spurs which advance towards
each other"

The vast region situated between the eastern coast of
South America and the eastern declivity of the Andes is
narrowed by two mountain masses, which partially divide
from each other the three valleys or plains of the Lower
Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the River Plate. The

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 107

most northern mountains, called the group of the Parime,
are opposite to the Andes of Cundinamarca which project
far to the east, and assume in the 66th and 68th degrees of
longitude the form of high mountains, connected by the
narrow ridge of Pacaraima with the granite hills of French
Guiana. On the map of Columbia constructed by me from
my own astronomical observations, this connection is clearly
marked. The Caribs, who penetrated from the missions of
the Caroni to the plains of the Rio Branco, and as far as the
Brazilian boundary, crossed in the journey the ridges of
Pacaraima and Quimiropaca. The second mountain mass,
which divides the valley of the Amazons from the Eiver
Plate, is the Brazilian group. In the province of Chiquitos
(west of the Parecis range of hills), it approaches the pro-
montory of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. As neither the
group of the Parime which causes the great cataracts
of the Orinoco, nor the Brazilian group of mountains, are
absolutely connected with the Andes, the plains of Vene-
zuela have a direct connection with those of Patagonia.
(See my geognostical view of South America, in Eelat.
Hist. T. iii. p. 388-244.)

(15) p. 8.— "Troops of dogs"

European dogs have become wild in the grassy plains or
Pampas of Buenos Ayres. They live in society, and in
hollows in which they hide their young. If the society
becomes too numerous, some families detach themselves and
form new colonies. The European dog, which has become
wild, barks as loud as the oriainal American hairy race.

108 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Garcilaso relates, thai before the arrival of the Spaniards the
Peruvians had dogs, "perros gozques." f He calls the
native dog, Allco : it is called at present in the Quichua
language, to distinguish him from the European dog,
" Runa-allco," " Indian dog" (dog of the inhabitants of
the country). The hairy Runa-allco seems to be a mere
variety of the shepherd's dog. He is small, with long hair,
(usually of an ochry yellow, with white and brown spots,)
and with upright sharp-pointed ears. He barks a great
deal, but seldom bites the natives, however disposed to
be mischievous to the whites. When the Inca Pacha-
cutec, in his religious wars with the Indians of Xauxa and
Huanca (the present valley of Huancaya and Jauja), con-
quered them, and converted them forcibly to the worship of
the sun, he found them paying divine honours to dogs.
Priests blew on the skulls of dogs, and the worship-
pers ate their flesh. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Commentarios
Reales, P. i. p. 184.) This veneration of dogs in the
valley of Huancaya is probably the reason why skulls and
even entire mummies of dogs have been found in the
Huacas, or Peruvian graves belonging to the earliest epoch.
Yon Tschudi, the author of an excellent Fauna Peruvians,
has examined these skulls, and believes them to belong to a
peculiar species of dog which he call, Cams inga3, and which
is different from the European dop1. The Huancas are still
called derisively by the inhabitants of other provinces, "dog-
eaters." Among the natives of the Rocky Mountains,
cooked dog's flesh is set before strangers as a feast of honour.
Near Eort Laramie, (one of the stations of the Hudson's

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITlONC. 109

Bay Company for me fur trade with the Sioux Indians),
Captain Fremont attended a feast of this description. (Fre-
mont's Exploring Expedition, 1845, p. 42.)

The Peruvian dogs had a singular part to play in eclipses
of the moon : they were beaten until the eclipse was over.
The Mexican Techichi, a variety of the common dog, which
latter was called in Anahuac Chichi, was completely dumb.
Techichi signifies literally stone-dog, from the Aztec, Tetl, a
stone. The Techichi was eaten according to the old Chinese
fashion. The Spaniards found this food, before the intro-
duction of European cattle, so indispensable, that almost the
whole race was gradually extirpated. (Clavigero, Storia antica
del Messico, 1780, T. i. p. 73.) Buffon confounds the
Techichi with the Koupara of Guiana. (T. xv. p. 155.)
The latter is identical with the Procyon or Ursus can-
crivorus, the Baton crabier, or crab-eating Aquara-
guaza of the Patagonian 'coast. ( Azara sur les quadrupedes
du Paraguay, T. i. p. 315.) Linnaeus, on the other hand,
confounds the dumb variety of dogs with the Mexican
Itzcuintepotzotly a kind of dog still only imperfectly de-
scribed, said to be distinguished by a short tail, a very
small head, and a large hump on the back. The name
signifies humped-dog, and is formed from the Aztec,
itzcuintli (another word for dog), and tepotzotli, humped, a
humpback. T was particularly struck in America, and
especially in Quito and generally in Peru, with the great
number of black dogs without hair, called by Buffon
"chiens turcs" (Canis segyptius, Linn.) Even among the
Indians this variety is common, but it is generally despised

110 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

and ill-treated. All European breeds of dogs perpetuate
themselves very well in South America, and if the dogs there
are not so handsome as those in Europe, the reason is partly
want of care, and partly that the handsomest varieties (such
as fine greyhounds and the Danish spotted breed) have never
been introduced there.

Heir von Tschudi makes the singular remark, that
in the Cordilleras, at elevations of 13000 feet, tender
races of dogs and the European domestic cat are exposed
to a particular kind of mortal disease. " Innumerable
attempts have been made to keep cats as domestic animals
in tho town of the Cerro de Pasco, 13228 Trench (or
14100 English) feet above the level of the sea, but such
attempts have failed, both cats and dogs dying at the end of
a few days in fits, in which the cats were taken at first with
convulsive movements, then tried to climb the walls, fell
back exhausted and motionless, and died. In Yauli I had
several opportunities of observing this chorea-like disease ;
it seems to be a consequence of the absence of sufficient
atmospneric pressure." In the Spanish colonies, the hair-
less dog was looked upon as of Chinese origin, and called
Perro Chinesco, or Chino. The race was supposed to have
come from Canton or from Manila : according to Klaproth,
it has certainly been extremely common in China since very
early times. Among the animals indigenous to Mexico
there was an entirely hairless, dog-like, but very large wolf,
called Xoloitzcuintli (from the Mexican xolo or xolotl,
servant or slave). On American dogs, ?ee Smith Barton's
Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, P.i. p. 34.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. Ill

The result of Tsclmdi's researches on the American indi-
genous races of dogs is the following. There are two kinds
almost specifically* different : 1. The Canis caraibicus of
Lesson, quite without hair, except a small bunch of white
hair on the forehead and at the point of the tail, of a slate
grey colour, and silent ; it was found by Columbus in the
Antilles, by Cortes in Mexico, and by Pizarro in Peru,
where it suffers from the cold of the Cordilleras, but is still
abundant in the warmer parts of the country, under the
name of perros chinos. 2. The Canis ingse, with pointed
nose and pointed ears ; this kind barks : it is now employed
in the care of cattle, and shews many varieties of colours,
from being crossed with European breeds. The Canis
ingse follows man to the high regions of the Cordilleras.
In ancient Peruvian graves his skeleton is sometimes found
resting at the feet of the human mummy. We know how
often the carvers of monuments in our own middle ages
employed the figure of a dog in this position, as an emblem
of fidelity. (J. J. v. Tschudi, Untersuchungen liber die
Fauna Peruana, S. 247-251.) At the very beginning of
the Spanish conquests European dogs became wild in the
islands of San Domingo and Cuba. (Garcilaso, P. i. 1723,
p. 326.) In the prairies between the Meta, the Arauca, and
the Apure, voiceless dogs, (perros mudos,) were eaten in the
IGth century. Alonso de Herrara, who, in 1535, undertook
an expedition to the Orinoco, says the natives called them
" Majos" or " Auries." A well - informed traveller,
Giesecke, found the same non-barking variety of dog in
Greenland. The Esquimaux dogs pass their lives entirely

112 STEPPES A>*D DESERTS.

in the open air ; at night they scrape holes for themselves
in the snow ; they howl like wolves, in accompaniment with
a dog that sits in the middle of the circle* and sets them off.
In Mexico the dogs were subjected to an operation to make
them fatter and better eating. On the borders of the
province of Durango, and farther to the north on the slave
lake, the natives, formerly at least, conveyed their tents of
buffalo skins on the backs of large dogs when changing
their place of residence with the change of season. All
these traits resemble the customs • of the inhabitants of
eastern Asia. (Humboldt, Essai polit. T. ii. p. 448; Rela-
tion hist. T. ii. p. 625.)

(16) p. 8. — " Like the greater part of the Desert of
Sahara, the Llanos are in the torrid zone.33

Significant denominations, — particularly such as refer to
the form in relief of the earth's surface, and which have
arisen at a period when there was only very uncertain
information respecting the countries in question and their
hypsometric relations, — have led to various and long-
continued geographical errors. The ancient denomination
of the " Greater and Lesser Atlas" (Ptol. Geogr. lib. iii.
cap. 1) has exercised the prejudicial influence here alluded to.
No doubt the snow-covered western summits of the Atlas
in the territory of Morocco may be regarded as the Great
Atlas of Ptolemy ; but where is the limit of the Little Atlas ?
Is the division into two Atlas chains, which the conservative
tendencies of geographers have preserved for 1700 years,
to be still maintained in the territory of Algiers, and even
between Tunis and Tlemse ? Are we to seek between the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. ] 13

coast and the interior for parallel chains constituting a
greater and a lesser Atlas? All travellers familiar with
geognostical views, who have visited Algeria since it has
been taken possession of by the French, contest the meaning
conveyed by the generally received nomenclature. Among
the parallel chains, that of Jurjura is generally supposed
to be the highest of those which have been measured ;
but the well-informed Fournel, (long Ingenieur en chef des
Mines de rAlgerie), affirms that the mountains of Aures,
near Batnah, which were still found covered with snow at
the end of March, are higher. Fournel denies the
existence of a Little and a Great Atlas, as I do that of a
Little and a Great Altai (Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 247-252).
There is only one Atlas, formerly called Dyris by the Mauri-
tanians, and "tins name is to be applied to the " foldings/'
("rides") or succession of crests which form the division
between the waters flowing to the Mediterranean, and those
which flow towards the Sahara lowland, ,The strike or
direction of the Eastern Mauritanian portion of the Atlas
is from east to west ; that of the elevated Atlas of Morocco
from north-east to south-west. The latter rises into summits
which, according to Renou, (Exploration Scientifique de
rAlgerie de 1840 a 1842, publiee par ordre du Gouverne-
ment, Sciences Hist, et Geogr. T. viii. 1846, p. 364 and 373),
attain an elevation of 10,700 Fr. (11400 Eng.) feet;
exceeding, therefore, the height of Etna. A singularly
formed highland of an almost square shape, (Sahab el
Marga), bounded on the south by higher elevations, is
situated in 33° lat. From thence towards the sea to

VOL. I. I

] 14 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

the west, about a degree south of Mogador, the Atlas
declines in height : this south-westernmost part bears the
name of Idrar-N-Deren. x

The northern Mauritanian boundaries of the widely
extended low region of the Sahara, as well as its southern
limits towards the fertile Soudan, are still ,but little known.
If we take on a mean estimation the parallels of 16J° and
32J° as the outside limits, we obtain for the Desert,
including its Oases, an area of more than 118500 square
German geographical miles ; or between nine and ten times
the area of Germany, and almost three times that of the
Mediterranean exclusive of the Black Sea. From the
best and most recent intelligence, for which we are indebted
to the French Colonel Daumas and MM. Fournel, Kenou,
and Carette, we learn that the desert of Sahara is composed
of several detached basins, and that the number and the
population of the fertile Oases is very much greater than had
been imagined from the awfully desert character of the
route between Insalah and Timbuctoo, and that from
Mourzouk in Fezzan, to Bilma, Tirtuma, and Lake
Tschad. It is now generally affirmed that the sand covers
only the smaller portion of. the great lowland. A similar
opinion had been previously propounded by the acutely
observant Ehrenberg, my Siberian travelling companion,
from what he had himself seen (Exploration Scientifique de
1'Algerie, Hist, et Geogr. T. ii. p. 332). Of larger wild
animals, only gazelles, wild asses, and ostriches are to be
met with. " Le lion du desert," says M. Carette, (Explor.
del'Alg. T. ii. p. 126-129; T. vii. p. 94 and 97), "est
im mvthe popularise par les artistes et les poetes. II

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 115

n'existe que dans leur imagination. Get animal ne sort
pas de sa montagne ou il trouve de quoi se loger, s'abreuver
et se iiourrir. Quand on parle aux habitans du desert de
ces betes feroces que les Europeens leur donnent pour
coinpagnons, ils repondent avec un imperturbable sang
froid, il y a done chez vous des lions qui boivent de Fair
et broutent des feuilles ? Chez nous il faut aux lions de
Feau courante et de la chair vive. Aussi des lions ne
paraissent dans le Zahara que la ou il y a des collines
boisees et de Feau. Nous ne craignons que la vipere
(lefa) et d'innoinbrables essaims de moustiques, ces derniers
la ou il y a quelque humidite."

Whereas Dr. Oudney, in the course of the long journey
from Tripoli to Lake Tschad, estimated the elevation of the
southern Sahara at 163 7 'English feet, to which German
geographers have even ventured to add an additional
thousand feet, the Ingenieur Fournel has, by careful
barometric measurements based on corresponding observa-
tions, made it tolerably probable that a part of the northern
desert is below the level of the sea. That portion of the
desert which is now called " le Zahara d' Algerie" advances
to the chains of hills of Metlili and el-Gaous, where the
northernmost of all the Oases, — that of el -Kantara, fruitful
in dates, — is situated. This low basin, which touches the
parallel of 34° lat., receives the radiant heat of a stratum
of chalk, (full of the shells of Inoceramus), inclined at an
angle of 65° towards the south (Fournel sur les Giseniens
de Muriate de Soude en Algerie, p. 6 in the Annales des
Mines, 4me Serie, T. ix., 1846, p. 546). "Arrives a
Biscara/' (Biskra), says Fournel, "un horizon indefini

116 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

comme celui de la mer se deroulait devant nous." Between
Biscara and Sidi Ocba the ground is only 228 (243 Eng.)
feet above the level of the sea. The inclination increases
considerably towards the south. In another work, (Asie
Centrale, T. ii. p. 320), where I have brought together
everything relating to the depression of some portions of
continents below the level of the sea, I have already noticed
that according to Le Pere the "bitter lakes" on the
isthmus of Suez, when they have a little water, — and,
according to General Andreossy, the Natron lakes of
Fayoum, — are also lower than the level of the Mediter-
ranean.

Among other manuscript notices of M. Fonrnel, I
possess a vertical geological profile, which gives all the
inflexions and inclinations of the strata, representing a
section of the 'surface the whole way from Philippeville on
the coast to the Desert of Sahara, at a spot not far from
the Oasis of Biscara. The direction of the line on which
the barometric measurements were taken is south 20° west;
but the elevations determined are projected, as in my Mexican
profiles, on a different plane, — a north-south one. Ascend-
ing uninterruptedly from Constantine, at an elevation of
332 toises (2122 Eng. feet), the culminating point is found
between Batnah and Tizur, at an elevation of only 560
oises (3580 Eng. feet). In the part of the desert situated
between Biscara and Tuggurt, Fournel has had a series of
Artesian wells dug with success (Comptes Eendus de TAcad.
des Sciences, t. xx. 1845, p. 170, 882, and 1305). We
learn from the old accounts of Shaw, that the inhabitants of
the country knew of a subterranean supply of water, and

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 117

relate fabulous tales of a " sea under the earth (bahr toht
el-erd) " Eresh waters flowing between clay and marl strata
of the old cretaceous and other sedimentary deposits, under
the action of hydrostatic pressure form gushing fountains
when the strata are pierced (Shaw, Voyages dans plusieurs
parties de la Berberie, t. i. p. 169 ; Rennell, Africa, Append.
p. Ixxxv). That fresh water in this part of the world
should often be found near beds of rock salt, need not
surprise geologists acquainted with mines, since Europe
offers many analogous phenomena.

The riches of the desert in rock-salt, and the fact of
rock-salt having been used in building, have been known
since the time of Herodotus. The salt zone of the Sahara
(zone salifere du desert), is- the southernmost of three zones,
stretching across Northern Africa from south-west to north-
east, and believed to be connected with the beds or deposits
of rock-salt of Sicily and Palestine, described by Eriedrich
Hoffman and by Robinson. (Eournel, sur les Gisements de
Muriate de Soude en Algerie, p. 28-41 ; Karsten iiber das
Vorkommen des Kochsalzes auf der Oberflache der Erde,
1846, S. 497, 648, and 741.) The trade in salt with
Soudan, and the possibility of cultivating dates in the Oases,
formed by depressions caused probably by falls or subsi-
dences of the earth in the gypsum beds of the tertiary
cretaceous or keuper promotions, have alike contributed
to enliven the Desert, at least to some extent, by human
intercourse. The high temperature of the air, which
makes the day's march so oppressive, renders the coldness
of the nights, (of which Denham complained so often in
the African Desert, and Sir Alexander Burnes in the Asiatic),

11 S STEPPES AND DESERTS.

so much the more striking. Melloni, (Memoria suh" abas-
samento di temperatura durante le notti placide e serene,
1847, p. 55), ascribes this cold, produced doubtless by the
radiation from the ground, less to the great purity and
serenity of the sky, (irrigiamento calorifico per la grande
serenita di cielo nell' immensa e deserta pianura del? Africa
centrale), than to the profound calm, the nightly absence
of all movement in the atmosphere. (Consult also, re-
specting African meteorology, Aime in the Exploration de
FAlgerie, Physique generate, T. ii., 1846, p. 147.)

The southern declivity of the Atlas of Morocco sends to
the Sahara, in lat. 32°, a river, the Quad-Dra (Wady-Dra),
which for the greater part of the year is nearly dry, and
which Renou (Explor. de FAlg. Hist, et Geogr., T. viii.
p. 65-78) considers to be a sixth longer than the Rhine. It
flows at first from north to south, until, in lat. 29° N. and
long. 5° W., it turns almost at right angles to its former
course, runs to the west, and, after passing through
the great fresh water Lake of Debaid, enters the sea at
Cape Nun, in lat. 28° 46' N. and long. 11° 08' W. This
region, which was so celebrated formerly in the history of
the Portuguese discoveries of the 15th century, and was
afterwards wrapped in profound geographical obscurity, is
now called on the coast "the country of the Sheikh Bei-
rouk," (a chief independent of the Emperor of Morocco.)
It was explored in the months of July and August 1840,
by Captain Count Bouet-Yillaumez of the French Navy,
by order of his government. Prom the official Reports
and Surveys which have been communicated to me in
manuscript, it appears evident that the mouth of the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 119

Quad-Dra is at present very much stopped up with sand,
having an open channel of only about 190 English feet wide.
A somewhat more easterly channel in the same mouth is
that of the still very little known Saguiel el-Hamra, which
comes from the south, and is supposed to have a course of
at least 600 geographical miles. One is astonished at the
length of these deep, but commonly dry river beds. They
are ancient furrows, such as I have seen in the Peruvian
desert at the foot of the Cordilleras, between those moun-
tains and the coast of the Pacific. In Bouet's manuscript
" B/elation de ^Expedition de la Malouine," the mountains
which rise to the north of Cape Nun are estimated
at the great elevation of 280.0 metres (9185 English feet).
Cape Nun is usually supposed to have been discovered
in 1433, by the Knight Gilianez, acting under the command
of the celebrated Infante Henry Duke of Yiseo, and foun-
der of the Academy of Sagres, which was presided over by
the pilot and cosmographer Mestre Jacome of Majorca;
but the Portulano Mediceo, the work of a Genoese Navi-
gator in 1351, already contains the name of Cavo di Non.
The passage round this Cape was then as much dreaded as
that of Cape Horn has since been, although it is 23' north
of the parallel of Teneriffe, and could be reached in a few
days' voyage from Cadiz, The Portuguese proverb, " quern
passa o Cabo di Num, ou tornara ou nao," could not deter
the Infante, whose heraldic French motto, " talent de bien
faire," expressed his noble, enterprising, and vigorous cha-
racter. The name of the Cape, in which a play of words
oil the negative particle has long been supposed, does not
appear to me to have had a Portuguese origin. Ptolemy

120 STEPPES AND DESERTS,

placed on the north-west coast of Africa a river Nuius, in
the Latin version Nunii Ostia. Edrisi speaks of a town,
Nul, or Wadi Nun, somewhat more to the south, and three
days' journey in the interior : Leo Africanus calls it Belad
de Non. Long before the Portuguese squadron of Gili-
anez, other European navigators had advanced much beyond,
or to the southward of, this Cape. The Catalan, Don Jayine
Ferrer, in 1346, as we learn from the Atlas Catalan pub-
lished by Buchon at Paris, had advanced as far as the Gold
River, (Rio do Ouro), in lat. 23° 56' ; and Normans, at the
end of the 14th century, as f :r as Sierra Leone in lat.
8° 30'. The merit of having been the first to cross the
equator on the western coast of Africa belongs, however,
like that of so many other memorable achievements, to the
Portuguese.

(17) p. 8. — "As a grassy plain, resembling many
of the Steppes of Central Asia"

The Llanos of Caraccas and of the Eio Apure and the
Meta, over which roam large herds of cattle, are, in the
strictest sense of the term, " grassy plains." Their preva-
lent vegetation, belonging to the two families of Cyperacese
and Graminese, consists of various species of Paspalum,
P. leptostachyum and P. lenticulare; of Kyllingia, K.
monocephala (Rottb.), K. odorata; of Panicum, P. granuli-
ferum, P. micranthum; of Antephora; Aristida; Yilfa;
and Anthistiria, A. reflexa, and A. foliosa. Only here and
there are found, interspersed among the Graminese, a few
herbaceous dicotyledonous plants, consisting of two very
low-growing species of Mimosa, (Sensitive Plant), Mimosa

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 121

intermedia, and Mimosa dormiens, which are great favourites
with the wild horses and cattle. The natives give to this
group of plants, which close their delicate feathery leaves
on being touched, the expressive name of Dormideras —
sleepy plants. For many square miles not a tree is seen ;
but where solitary trees are found, they are, in moist
places, the Mauritia Palm ; in arid districts, a Proteacea,
described by Bonpland and myself, the Ehopala complicata
(Chaparro bobo), which Wildenow regarded as an Embo-
thrium; also the highly useful Palma de Covija, or de
Sombrero ; and our Corypha inermis, an umbrella palm allied
to Chama3rops, which is used to cover the roofs of huts.
How far mor& varied is the aspect of the Asiatic plains !
Throughout a large portion of the Kifghis and Calinuck
Steppes, which I have traversed from the Don, the Caspian,
and the Orenburg Ural river the Jaik, to the Obi and
the Upper Irtysh near Lake Dsaisang, through a space of
40 degrees of longitude, 1 have never seen, as in the
Llanos, the Pampas, and the Prairies, an horizon like that
of the ocean, where the vault of heaven appears to rest on
the unbroken plain. At the utmost this appearance pre-
sented itself in one direction, or towards one quarter of the
heavens. The Asiatic Steppes are often crossed by ranges
of hills, or clothed with coniferous woods or forests. Even
in the most fruitful pastures the vegetation is by no means
limited to grasses ; there is a great variety of herbaceous
plants and shrubs. In spring-time small snow-white and
red-flowering rosaceae and amygdalese (Spirsea, Cratsegus,
Prunus spinosa, and Amygdalus nana) present a smiling
aspect. I have already mentioned the tall and luxuriant

122 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Synantherse (Saussurea amara, S. salsa, Artemisias, and
Centaureas), and of leguminous plants, species of Astra-
galus, Cytisus, and Caragana. Crown Imperials, (Fritillaria
ruthenica, and F. meleagroides), Cypripedias, and tulips,
rejoice the eye by the bright variety of their colours.

A contrast to the pleasing vegetation of these Asiatic plains
is presented by the desolate salt Steppes, particularly by the
part of the Barabinski Steppe which is at- the foot of the
Altai mountains, and by the Steppes between Barnaul and the
Serpent Mountain and the country on the east of the Caspian.
Here Chenopodias, some species of Salsola and Atriplex, Sali-
cornias and Halimocnemis crassifolia, (each species growing
" socially"), form patches of vegetation on the muddy ground.
See GobeFs Journey in the Steppes of the South of Russia
(Reise in die Steppe des siidlichen Eusslands, 1838, Th. ii.
S. 244 and 301). Of the 500 phanerogamous species
which Glaus and Gobel collected in the Steppes, the Syrnn-
therse, the Chenopodese, and the Cruciferse, were more
numerous than the grasses ; the latter being only -^ of the
whole, and the former -fth and -§-th. ' In Germany, from the
mixture of hill and plain districts, the Glumaceae (a. e. the
Graminese, Cyperacese, and Juncacese collectively), form
-fth ; the Synantherse or Composite -fth ; and the Cruciferse
—th of all our German phanerogamia. In the most nor-
thern parts of the flat Siberian lowlands, the fine map of
Admiral Wrangell shews that the extreme northern limit of
tree and shrub vegetation (Coniferae and Amentacese) is, in
the portion towards the Behring's Straits side, in 674-° lat. ;
and more to the west, towards the banks of the Lena, in
71°, which is the parallel of the north cape of Lapland.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 123

The plains which border the Icy Sea are the domain of
cryptogamous plants. They are called Tundras (Tuntur in
Finnish) : they are swampy districts extending farther than
the eye can reach, partly covered with a thick carpet of
Sphagnum palustre and other mosses, and partly with a dry
snow-white covering of Cenomyce rangiferina (Eein-deer
moss), Stereocaulon paschale, and other lichens. Admiral
Wrangell, in describing his perilous expedition to the new
Siberian islands so rich in fossil wood, says : " These Tun-
dras accompanied me to the extreme arctic coast. Their
soil has been frozen for thousands of years. In the dreary
uniformity of landscape, the eye of the traveller, surrounded
by rein-deer moss, dwells with pleasure on the smallest patch
of green turf showing itself now and then on a moist
spot."

(18) p. 8. — " The causes which lessen both heat and
dryness in the New World"

I have tried to bring together in a brief and compendious
manner the various causes which produce greater moisture
and a less degree of heat in America ; it will of course be
understood that the question respects the general hygrome-
tric state of the atmosphere, and the temperature of the New
Continent as a whole. Single districts, such as the island of
Margarita, the Coasts of Cumana and Goro, are as hot and as
dry as any part of Africa. It must also be remarked that
the maximum of heat at certain hours of a summer's day has
been found, on a series of years, to be almost equal at very
different parts of the earth's surface, on the Neva, the Senegal,
the Ganges, and the Orinoco ; being approximately between

STEPPES AND DESERTS.

27°and 32°Eeaumur (93°and 104°Fahrenheit),and generally
not higher, — providing the observation be made in the shade,
at a distance from all solid bodies which could radiate heat
to the thermometer, not in an air filled with hot particles
of dust or sand, and not with spirit thermometers, which
absorb the light. It is probably to fine grains of sand
floating in the air, and forming centres of radiant heat, that
we must ascribe the dreadful temperature of 40° to 44°.8
Eeaumur (122° to 133° Pah.) in the shade, to which my
unhappy friend Eitchie, who perished there, and Captain
Lyon, were exposed for weeks in the Oasis of Mourzouk.
The most remarkable instance of very high temperature,
in an air probably free from dust, has been recorded by an
observer who knew well how to place and to correct all his
instruments with the greatest degree of accuracy. Eiippell
found 37°.6 Eeaumur, (110°.6 Fahrenheit,) at Ambukol in
Abyssinia, with a clouded sky, strong south-west wind, and
an approaching thunderstorm. The mean annual tempera-
ture of the tropics, or of the proper climate of palms, is, on
land, between 20°.5 and 23°.8 Eeaumur (or 78°.2 and
8 5°. 5 Fahrenheit) without any considerable difference
between the observations collected in Senegal, Pondi-
chery, and Surinam. (Humboldt, Memoire sur les lignes
isotherm es, 1817, p. 54. - Asie Centrale, T. iii. Mahlmann,
Table iv.)

1 The great coolness, I might almost say cold, which prevails
for a considerable part of the year within the tropics on the
coast of Peru, causing the thermometer to sink to 12°
Eeaumur (59° Fahrenheit), is, as I have noticed elsewhere,
by no means to be ascribed to the vicinity of the snow-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 125

covered Andes, but rather to the fogs (garaa) which veil
the solar disk, and to a cold sea current which, commenc-
ing in the antarctic regions and coming from the south-west,
strikes the coast of Chili near Valdivia and Conception, and
thence streams rapidly along the coast to the northward, as
far as Cape Farina. On the coast, near Lima, the tempera-
ture of the Pacific is 12°.5 Eeaumur (60°.2 Fahr.), whilst
iii the same latitude out of the current it is 21° E. (79°.2
Fahr.) It is singular that so striking a fact should have
remained unnoticed until my visit to the shores of the
Pacific, in October 1802.

The variations of temperature of different regions depend
in a great degree on the character of the bottom of the
"aerial ocean," or on the nature of the floor or base,
whether land or sea, continental or oceanic, on which the
atmosphere rests. Seas, often traversed by currents of
warmer or colder water, (oceanic rivers), have an effect very
different from that of continental masses, whether unbroken
or articulated, or of islands, which latter may be regarded
as shallows in the aerial ocean, and which, notwithstanding
their small dimensions, exert, often to a great distance, a
notable influence on the climate of the sea. In continental
masses we must distinguish between sandy deserts devoid of
vegetation, savannahs or grassy plains, and forest-covered
districts. In Upper Egypt and in South America, Nouet
in the former, and myself in the latter, found respectively
at noon the temperature of the ground composed of granitic
sand 54°.2 and 48°.4 Eeaumur (154° and i 41° Fahr.) Many
careful observations in Paris have given, according to Arago,
40° and 42° Eeaumur, 122° and 126°.5 Fahrenheit, (Asie

126 STEPPES AND DE3E2.TS.

Centrale, T. iii. p. 176.) The Savannahs, which between
the Missouri and the Mississipi are called Prairies, and
which appear in South America as the Llanos of Venezuela
and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, are covered with small
monocotyledonous plants of the family of Cyperaceae, and
with grasses of which the thin pointed stalks or ears, and
the delicate lanceolate leaves or blades, radiate towards the
unclouded sky, and possess an extraordinary power of " emis-
sion." Wells and Daniell (Meteor. Essays, 1827, p. 230
and 278) have even seen in our latitude, where the atmos-
phere has so much less transparency, the thermometer sink
6°.5 or 8° of Reaumur (14°.5 or 18° Fahrenheit), on
being placed on the grass. Melloni, in a memoir, " Sull
abassamento di temperatura durante le notti placide e
serene," 1847, p. 47 and 53, has shewn how in a calm
state of the atmosphere, which is a necessary condition of
strong radiation and of the formation of dew, the cooling of
the grassy surface is also promoted by the particles of air
which are already cooled sinking to the ground as being the
heaviest. In the vicinity of the equator, under the clouded
sky of the Upper Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and the Amazons
River, the plains are clothed with dense primeval forests ; but
to the north and south of this wooded region there extend
from the zone of palms and lofty dicotyledonous trees, in
the northern hemisphere, the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco
the Meta and the Guaviare, and in the southern hemisphere
the Pampas of the Rio de la Plata and of Patagonia. The
space thus occupied by Savannahs or grassy plains in South
America is at least nine times as great as the area of France,
The wooded region acts in a threefold manner in diminish-

ANNOTATIONS A.ND ADDITIONS. 127

ing the temperature . by cooling shade, by evaporation, and
by radiation. Forests, — which in our temperate zone
consist of trees living together in ''society," i. e.} many
individuals of one, or of a few kinds, of the families of
Coniferse or Amentaceae, oaks, beeches, and birches, but in
the tropics, of an immense variety of trees living separately
or " unsocially," — protect the ground from the direct rays
of the sun, evaporate fluids elaborated by the trees themselves,
and cool the strata of air in immediate contact with them by
the radiation of heat from their appendicular organs or
leaves. The latter are far from being all parallel with each
other ; they are, on the contrary, variously inclined to the
horizon, and, according to the law developed by Leslie and
Courier, the influence of this inclination upon the quantity
of heat emitted by radiation is such, that the power of
radiation (pouvoir rayonnant) of a measured surface a,
having a given oblique direction, is equal to the " pouvoir
rayonnant" which would belong to a surface of the size
of a, projected on a horizontal plane. Now in the initial
condition of radiation, of all the leaves which form the
summit of a tree and partly cover each other, those are
first cooled which are directed without any intervening
screen towards the unclouded sky. The cooling result
(or the exhaustion of heat by emission) will be the more
considerable the greater the thinness of the leaves. A
second stratum of leaves has its upper surface turned to the
under surface of the .first stratum, and will give out more
heat by radiation towards that stratum than it can receive
by radiation from it. The result of this unequal exchange
will thus be a loss of temperature for the second stratum

128 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of leaves also A similar operation will continue from
stratum to stratum until all the leaves of the tree, by
greater or less radiation as modified by their diversity of
position, have passed into a state of stable equilibrium of
which the law can be deduced by mathematical analysis.
In this manner, in the long and clear nights of the equi-
noctial zone, the forest air contained in the intervals between
the strata of leaves becomes cooled by the process of
radiation ; and by reason of the great quantity of its thin
appeiidicular organs or leaves, a tree, the horizontal section
of whose summit would measure for example 2000 square
feet, would act in diminishing the temperature of the air
equivalently to a space of bare or turf-covered ground
several thousand times greater than 2000 square feet (Asie
Centrale, T. iii. p. 195-205). I have sought thus to
develope in detail the comp icated effects which make up the
total action of extensive forests upon the atmosphere, because
they have been so often touched upon in reference to the
important question concerning the climates of ancient
Germany and Gaul.

As in the old continent European civilization has had
its principal seats on a western coast, it could not but be
early remarked that, under " equal degrees of latitude, the
opposite eastern coast of the United States was several
degrees colder in mean annual temperature than Europe,
which is, as it were, a projecting western peninsula to Asia,
as Brittany is to the rest of France. But in this remark
it was forgotten that these differences decrease from the
higher to the lower latitudes in such manner that they
Almost entirely disappear from 30° downwards. For the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

129

west coast of the new continent, exact thermometric obser-
vations are still almost entirely wanting ; but the mildness
of the winters in New California shews that the west coasts
of America and Europe, under the same parallels of latitude,
probably differ little from each other in mean annual tempe-
rature. The subjoined table shows what are the correspond-
ing mean annual temperatures, in the same geographical
latitudes, of the west coast of Europe and the east coast of
the New Continent.

'Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

V- «s

•5 -g -o «;

« fe"

"« »a S,

* | fe

c w * 2

C V, g 3

§1 c

Similar

East Coast

West Coast

2^ I

• e-gg

1 ••

"s «'§£

degrees

of

of

1 * 1

§•!•<!

a o S
S *? ^

li'ls

of
latitude.

America.

Europe.

"a ^ °

illl

ill

Ifif

-14C

4

-0°.5

57° 10'

"NT '

2° 8 —

25° 8

6M

45°.8

!• 9°.2

}>20°.7

.5

57° 41'

Gottenburg

46°.4 —

1

-4°.0

23°.0

47° 34'

St. John's .

2°.7 -

8

38°.0 —

.0

-0°.4 1

31°.0

47° 30'

Ofen . .
(or Buda)

• 5°.8

*^AO t

-18«0

8 '2 16°

8

69°.8 1

2°

6

37°

8

48° 50'

Paris

•/ ' o

14

5

64°.6

VOL. I.

(Continued.

130

STEPPES iND DESEETS.

Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

if . nil

1! . 1111

•H *fe o> ctf **"* ^ M

2 fe Jr1 § **** ^ r^

Similar
degrees

East Coast

West Coast

S.*i Ssls

}°.| ill!

of
latitude.

of
America.

of
Europe.

I-H Ifil

III IIII

ill fill

— 3°.5

24°.2

44° 39'

Halifax

5>1 i3°!s

43° 5

63°.0

4°.8

:6U

42°.8

> 18°.7

44° 50'

Bordeaux .

-i -i a 0

K7O o

71°.2

11 '2 17-.4

0°.l

32°.2

40° 43'

New York

ro° n

.1 ,^n^

"* .«> o

18°.2

73 .0

0°.l

32°.2

39° 57'

Philadelphia

....

no r\

52°-2 mi

18°.l

r.s

36°.0

O QO K. Q/

oo D w

Washington

....

^ 3°4

55°-° mi

^ 8.0

7°.8

49°.5

40° 51'

Naples

12°.9 ——

61°'° 75^0

9°.0

oo 52

Lisbon

lo .1 •••

11 '5 71°2

12° 2

59°.5

29° 48'

St.Augustin

....

1 7° Q

rpriQ r\

0 A

81°.5

i 0.2

[ 0°.4

i

11°. 8

58°.5

30° 2'

Cairo . .

17°.7
23°.4

7-100
84°.7

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 131

In the column of temperatures in the preceding table the
first number represents the temperature of the year ; that
which stands in place of a numerator the mean winter
temperature ; and that which stands in the place of a deno-
minator the mean summer temperature. Besides the great
difference of mean annual temperature, there is also a
striking difference between the two coasts in respect to the
distribution of that temperature into the different seasons of
the year, and it is this distribution which is most influential
both on our feelings and on the processes of vegetation. Dove
remarks generally, that the summer temperature of America
is lower under equal degrees of latitude than that of Europe :
(Temperatur tafeln nebst Bemerkungeu iiber die Yerbreitung
der Warme auf der Oberflache der Erde, 1848, S. 95.)
The climate of St. Petersburgh, (or to speak more correctly
the mean annual temperature of that city which is in lat.
59° 56'), is found on the east coast of America in lat. 47-|-0,
or 1£^° more to the south; in like manner we find the
climate of Konigsberg, (lat. 54° 43'), at Halifax, (lat.
44° 39'). The temperature of Toulouse, (lat. 43° 36')
corresponds to that of Washington (lat. 38° 53').

It would be very hazardous to lay down any general
statements respecting the temperature in the territory of
the United States of America, as we must distinguish in
that territory three regions : — 1, the "Atlantic States east of
the Alleghanies ; 2, the Western States in the wide basin
between the Alleghanies and the Eocky Mountains, through
which flow the Mississipi, the Ohio, the Arkansas, and the
Missouri ; 3, the high plains between the Eocky Mountains,

132 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

and the Maritime Alps of New California through which
the Oregon or Columbia River finds a passage. Since the
highly honourable establishment, by John Calhoun, of unin-
terrupted observations of temperature, made on an uniform
plan at 35 military posts, and reduced to daily, monthly,
and annual means, we have arrived at more just climatic
views than those which were so generally received in the
time of Jefferson, Barton, and Volney. These meteorolo-
gical stations or observatories extend from the point of
Florida and Thompson's Island, (Key West), lat, 24° 33',
to the Council Bluffs on the Missouri ; and if we reckon
amongst them Port Vancouver, lat. 45° 37', they include
differences of longitude of 40°.

It cannot be affirmed that, on the whole, the mean annual
temperature of the second or middle region is higher than
that of the first or Atlantic region. The further advance of
certain plants towards the north, on the west of the Alle-
ghany mountains, depends partly on the nature of those
plants, and partly on the different distribution of the same
annual quantity of heat. The wide valley of the Mississipi
enjoys at its northern and southern extremities the warming
influence of the Canadian Lakes, and of the Mexican Gulf
stream. The five lakes, (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie,
and Ontario), occupy a space of 92,000 English square miles.
The climate is much milder and more equable in the neigh-
bourhood of the lakes; for example, at Niagara, (lat.
43° 15'), the mean winter temperature is only half a degree
of Reaumur (1°.2 Fahrenheit) below the freezing point,
while at a distance from the lakes, in lat 44° 53', at the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 133

confluence of the river St. Peter's with the Mississipi, the
mean winter temperature of Fort Snelling is — 7°.2 Reaumur,
or 15°. 9 Fahrenheit (see Samuel Ferry's excellent Memoir
on "the Climate of the United States/' 1842, p. 37, 39,
and 102.) At this distance from the Canadian Lakes,
(whose surface is from 500 to 600—530 to 640 English-
feet above the level of the sea, whilst the bottom of the
lakes Michigan and Huron is about five hundred feet below
it), recent observations have 'shewn the climate of the
country to possess a proper continental character, i. e.y
hotter summers and colder winters. " It is proved/' says
Forry, " by our thermometrical data, that the climate west
of the AUeghany Chain is more excessive than that of the
Atlantic side." At Fort Gibson, on the Arkansas Biver
which falls into the Mississipi in lat. 35° 47', with a mean
annual temperature hardly equal to that of Gibraltar, the
thermometer in the shade, and without any reflected heat
from the ground, has been seen, in August 1834, to rise
to 37°.7 Reaumur, or 117° Fahrenheit.

The statement so often repeated, although unsupported
by any thermometric measurements, that since the first
European settlements in New England, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia, the eradication of many forests on both sides
of the Alleghanies had rendered the climate more equable,
(i. e., milder in winter and cooler in summer), is now gene-
rally doubted or disbelieved. Series of trustworthy thermo-
metric observations in the United States hardly extend so far
back as 78 years. We see in the Philadelphia observations,

134 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

that from 1771 to 1824, the mean annual temperature has
hardly increased 1°.2 Reaumur, (or 2°.8 Fahrenheit), — a
difference which is attributed to the increased size of the
town, to its greater population, and to the numerous steam-
engines. The difference may possibly be merely accidental,
for I find in the same period an increase of mean winter
cold, amounting to 0°.9 Reaumur, or 2° Fahrenheit ; the
three other seasons had become somewhat warmer. Three-
and-thirty years' observations at Salem in Massachusetts
shew no alteration at all: the annual means oscillate,
within a degree of Fahrenheit, about the mean of the
whole number of years ; and the winters of Salem, instead
of having become milder, as supposed from the destruction
of the forests in the course of the thirty-three years, have
become colder by 1°.8 Eeaumur, or 4° Fahrenheit. (Forry,
p. 97, 101, and 107.)

As the east coast of the United States is comparable in
respect to mean annual temperature in equal latitudes to
the Siberian and Chinese coasts of the old continent, so
also the west coasts of Europe and America have been very
properly compared together. I will only take a few
examples from the western "region on the shores of the
Pacific, for two of which (Sitka in Russian America, and
Fort George, in the same latitudes respectively as Gotten-
burg and Geneva) I am indebted to # Admiral Liitke's
voyage of circumnavigation. Iluluk and Danzig are nearly
on the same parallel, and although the mean temperature of
Iluluk, owing to its insular climate and to a cold

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

135

current, is somewhat lower than that of Danzig, yet the
winter temperature of the American station is milder than
that of the port on the Baltic.

Latitude.

Longitude.

Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

0°.6

33°.4

Sitka . . .

57° 3'

135° 16' W.

5° f*

A An K

.0 '

4iai .5 _

10°. 2

55 .0

-0°.2

31°.5

Gottenburg. .

57° 41'

11° 59' E.

6° 4
13°.5

46°46T:4

2°.6

37-.9

Fort George .

46° 18'

122° 58' W.

QO "I

p/y> o

' 12°.4

5°'360°.0

0°.7

33°.6

Geneva . . .

46° 12'

(Alt.1298E.ft.)

7° 9
14°.0

49° 8
63°.5

— 3°.l

25°.0

Kherson. . .

46° 38'

32° 39' E.

9°.4

53°.2-— -

17°.3

71°.0

Snow is hardly ever seen on the banks of the Oregon or
Columbia river, and ice on the river lasts only a very few
days. The lowest temperature which Mr. Ball once observed
there in the winter of 1833 was 6^-° of Reaumur below
the freezing point, or 17.4° Fahrenheit (Message from the
President of the United States to Congress, 1844, p. 160 ;
and Forry, Clim. of the U. States, p. 49, 67, and 73).
A cursory glance at the summer and winter temperatures
above given, shews that on and near the west coast, a true
insular climate prevails. The winter cold is less than in
the western parts of the old continent, and the summers
are much cooler. The most striking contrast is presented

136 - STEPPES AND DESERTS.

by comparing the mouth of the Oregon with Torts Snelling
and Howard, and the Council Bluffs, in the interior of
the Mississipi and Missouri basin (Lat. 41° — 46°), —
where, to speak in the language of JBuffon, we find an
excessive, or true continental climate, — a winter cold,
on single days, of -28°.4 and -30°.6 Eeaumur (-32°
and —37° Fahr.), followed by mean summer temperatures
of 16°.8 and 17°.5 Keaumur (69° and 71°.4 Fahr.)

(19) p. 10. — "As if America had emerged later from
the chaotic watery covering"

An acute enquirer into nature, Benjamin Smith Barton,
said long since with great truth, (Fragments of the Natural
History of Pennsylvania, P. i. p. 4), " T cannot but deem
it a puerile supposition, unsupported by the evidence of
nature, that a great part of America has probably later
emerged from the bosom of the ocean than the other
continents/' The same subject was touched on by myself
in a memoir on the primitive 'nations of America (Neue
BerlinischeMonatschrift, Bd.xv. 1806, S. 190). " Writers
generally and justly praised have repeated but too often
that America is in every sense of the word a New Continent.
Her luxuriance of vegetation, the abundant wraters of her
enormous rivers, the unrepose of her powerful volcanoes,
all (say they) proclaim that the still trembling earth, from
the face of which the waters have not yet dried off, is here
nearer to the chaotic primordial state than in the Old
Continent. Such ideas appeared to me, long before I
commenced my travels, alike unphilosophical and con-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITION'S. 137

trary to generally acknowledged physical laws. Fantastic
images of terrestrial youth, and unrepose associated on the
one hand, — and on the other, those of increasing dryness,
and inertia in maturer age, — could only have presented
themselves to minds more inclined to draw ingenious or
striking contrasts between the two hemispheres, than to
strive to comprehend, in one general view, the construction
of the entire globe. Are we to regard the south of Italy
as more modern than its northern portions, because the
former is almost incessantly disquieted by earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions? Besides, what small phenomena are
the volcanoes and earthquakes of the present day, in com-
parison with those revolutions of nature which the geologist
must suppose to have accompanied, in the chaotic state
of the earth, the elevation, solidification, disruptions, and
cleavings of the mountain masses? Diversity of causes
must produce diversity in the operations of natural forces,
in countries remote as well as near. Perhaps the volcanoes
of the new continent, (of which I still reckon above 28 in
a state of activity), have only continued to burn longer
than others, because the lofty mountain ridges, on which
they have broken forth in rows or series above long sub-
terranean fissures, are nearer to the sea, and because this
proximity seems, with a few exceptions, to affect the energy
of the subterranean fires in some way not yet sufficiently ex-
plained. Besides, both earthquakes and fire-emitting moun-
tains have periods of activity alternating with periods of
repose. "At the present moment," (I -wrote thus 42 years
ago !) " physical disquiet and political calm reign in the New

138 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Continent, while in the Old the desolating strife of nations
disturbs the enjoyment of the repose of nature. Perhaps a
time is coming when, in this singular contrast between
physical and moral forces, the two sides of the Atlantic
will change parts. Volcanoes are quiescent for centuries
before they burst forth anew; and the idea that in the
so-called older countries, a certain peace must prevail in
nature, is founded on a mere play of the imagination.
There exists no reason for assuming one entire side of
our planet to be older or newer than the other. Islands
are indeed raised from the bed of the ocean by volcanic
action, and gradually heightened by coral animals, as the
Azores and many low flat islands of the Pacific ; and these
may indeed be said to be newer than many Plutonic
formations of the European central chain. A small district
of the earth, surrounded, like Bohemia and Kashmeer, (and
like many of the vallies in the Moon), by annular mountains,
may, by partial inundations, be long covered with water ; and
after the flowing off of this lake or inland sea, the ground
oil which vegetation begins gradually to establish itself
might be said, figuratively, to be of recent origin. Islands
have become connected with each other by the elevation
of fresh masses of land ; and parts of the previously dry
land have been submerged by the subsidence of the
oscillating ground; b'ut submersions so general as to
embrace a hemisphere, can, from hydrostatic laws, only be
imagined as extending at the same time over all parts of the
earth. The sea cannot permanently overflow the boundless
plains of the Orinoco and the Amazons, without also over-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 139

whelming the plains adjoining the Baltic. The sequence
and identity of the sedimentary strata, and of the organic
remains of plants and animals belonging to the ancient
world enclosed in those strata, shew that several great
depositions have taken place almost simultaneously over
the entire globe." (For the fossil vegetable remains in the
coal formation in North America and in Europe, compare
Adolph Brongniart, Prodrome d'une Hist, des Vegetaux
Eossiles, p. 179; and Charles LyelTs Travels in North
America, vol. ii. p. 20).

(2°) p. 10. — " The Southern Hemisphere is cooler and
moister than our Northern half of the globe."

Chili, Buenos Ayres, and the southern parts of Brazil and
Peru, have all, as a result of the narrowness of the conti-
nent of South America as it tapers towards the south, a
true " insular climate j or a climate of cool summers and
mild winters. As far as the 48th or 50th parallel of
latitude this character of the Southern Hemisphere may
be regarded as an advantage, but farther on towards the
Antarctic Pole, South America gradually becomes an inhos-
pitable wilderness. The difference of latitude of the
southern terminating points of Australia, (including Yan
Diemen Island), of Africa, and of America, — gives
to each of these continents a peculiar character. The
Straits of Magellan are between the 53d and 54th degrees
of latitude, and yet in December and January, when the
sun is 18 hours above the horizon, the temperature sinks

140 . STEPPES A.ND DESERTS.

to 4° Beaumuiy or 41° Fahrenheit. Snow falls almost
daily, and the highest atmospheric temperature observed
by Churruca (1788) in December, (the summer of those
regions), was not above 9° R., or 52°.2 Eahr. The Cabo
Pilar, whose towering rock, though only 218 toises, or
1394 English feet high, may be regarded as the southern
termination of the chain of the Andes, is almost in the
same latitude as Berlin. (Relacion del Yiage al Estrecho
de Magallaues, apendice, 1793, p. 76.)

While in the Northern Hemisphere all the continents
attain a sort of mean limit towards the Pole, coinciding
pretty regularly with the parallel of 70°, the terminating
points in the Southern Hemisphere, — of America, in the
deeply indented and intersected Tierra del Fuego, — of
Australia, — and of Africa, — are respectively 34°, 46£°,
and 56° distant from the south pole. The temperature
of the very unequal extents of ocean, which divide these
southern points from the icy pole, contributes very mate-
rially to modify their climates. The areas of dry land in
the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are to each other
in the proportion of 3 to 1. But this inferiority in extent
of continental masses in the Southern Hemisphere, as
compared with the Northern, belongs much more to the
temperate than to the torrid zone. In the temperate zones
of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the ratio
is as 13 to 1 ; in the torrid zones as 5 to 4. The great
inequality in the distribution of the dry land exercises a very
sensible influence on the strength of the ascending aerial

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 141

current which turns towards the southern pole, and on
the temperature of the Southern Hemisphere. Some of
the noblest forms of tropical vegetation, for example the
tree-ferns, advance south of the equator as far as the parallels
of 46°, and of even 53°; whereas north of the equator they
are not found beyond the tropic of Cancer. (Eobert Brown,
Appendix to Flinders' Yoyage, p. 575 and 584; Hum-1
boldt, de distributione geographica Plantarum, p. 81-85.)
Tree-ferns thrive extremely well at Hobart Town in Van
Diemen Island, (lat 42° 53'), where the mean annual tem-
perature is 9° Eeaumur, or 5 2°. 2 Fahrenheit, and is there-
fore l°.6 Eeaumur, or 3°.6 Fahrenheit, less than that of
Toulon. Rome is almost a degree of latitude farther from
the equator than Hobart Town, and has an annual tem-
perature of 12°.3 E., or 59°.8 Fahr.; — a winter tempera-
ture of 6°.5 E., or 46°.4 Fahr., — and a summer temperature
of 24° E., or 86° Fahr. ; these three values being in Hobart
Town 8°.9, 4°.5, and 13°.8 E., or 52°.0, 42°.2, and 63°.
Fahr. In Dusky Bay, New Zealand, tree-ferns grow in
S. lat. 46° 8', and in the Auckland and Campbell Islands,
even in 53° S. lat. (Jos. Hooker, Flora Antarctica, 1844,
p. 107.)

In the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, — where, in the
same latitude as Dublin, the mean winter temperature is
0°.4 Eeaumur, (33° Fah.) and the mean summer tempera-
ture only 8° E., or 50° Fahr., — Captain King found the
"vegetation thriving most luxuriantly in large woody -stemmed
trees of Fuchsia and Veronica" ; while this vigour of vege-
tation, which, especially on the western coast of America

142 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

in 38° and 40° of south latitude, is so picturesquely
described by Charles Darwin, suddenly disappears south
of Cape Horn, on the rocks of the Southern Orkney and
Shetland Islands, and of the Sandwich Archipelago. These
Islands, but scantily covered with grass, moss, and lichens,
' ' Terres de Desolation/' as the Trench navigators call them,
are still far north of the Antarctic Circle ; whereas in the
Northern Hemisphere in 70° of latitude, at the extremity of
Scandinavia, fir-trees attain a height of between 60 and 70
English feet. (Compare Darwin iii the " Journal of Re-
searches/' 1845, p. 244, with King in vol. i. of the Narra-
tive of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, p. 577.)
If we compare Tierra del Fuego, and particularly Port
Famine in the Straits of Magellan in lat. 53° 38', with
Berlin, which is one degree nearer the equator, we find for

-0°.5 30°.8

Berlin 6° 8, K, 47°. 2, Fahr. ; and for

13°.9 63°.2

1°.2 34°.8

Port Famine 4°. 7, E., 42°. 6, Fahr.

8°.0 50°.0

I subjoin in one view the few well-assured temperature
data which we at present possess, for the lands of the
temperate zone in the Southern Hemisphere, and which
may be compared with the temperatures of the Northern
Hemisphere, in most parts of which the distribution into
summer heat and winter cold is so different and so much
less equable. I employ the convenient method of notation
before used and explained in pages 129 — 131.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

143

"Place.

South
Latitude.

Mean Annual, Winter, and
Summer Temperature.

Reaumur.

Fahrenheit.

Sidney and Paramatta
(New Holland.)

33°.50'

10°.0

f.4O f

<<J20°.2

4 '577°.5

Cape Town (Africa.)

33°.55'

15° 0 — -
18°.3

58° 5

Buenos Ayres . . .

34°.17'

**&

52°.5

Monte Video . . .

y#

]_gO 5 /'pN

57°.3

Hobart Town (Van
Diemen Island.)

££

4°.5
9011^8

52°-5S

Port Famine (Straits
of Magellan.) . .

53°.3S'

4° 7

"Vo

34°.8

(21) p. 11.— "A connected Sea of Sand."

As the Heaths formed of socially growing Ericeee, which
stretch from the mouth of the Scheldt to that of the Elbe
and from the point of Jutland to the Harz, may be regarded
as one connected tract of vegetation, — so the seas of sand
may be traced through Africa and Asia, from Cape Blanco
to beyond the Indus, or through an extent of 5600 geo-
graphical miles. Herodotus's Sandy Eegion interrupted
by Oases, called by the Arabs the Desert of Sahara,
traverses almost the whole of Africa, which it intersects

144 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

like a dried-up arm of the sea. The valley of the Nile is
the eastern limit of the Lybian Desert. Beyond the Isth-
mus of Suez, beyond the porphyritic, syenitic, and basaltic
rocks of Sinai, begins the Desert mountain plateau of
Nedjid, which occupies the whole of the interior of the
Arabian Peninsula, and is bounded to the west and south
by the fertile and happier coast lands of Hedjaz and
Hadhramaut. The Euphrates, bounds the Arabian and
Syrian Deserts towards the east. Immense seas of sand,
(bejaban), cross Persia from the Caspian to the Indian Sea.
Among them are the salt and soda Deserts of Kerman,
Seistan, Beloochistan, and Mekran. The latter is separated
from the Desert of Moultan by the Indus.

(22) p. 11.—" The western part of the Atlas."

The question respecting the position of the ancient Atlas
has been much discussed in modern times, but the oldest
Phoenician legends have been confounded in this discussion
with the later fables of the Greeks and the Romans. A
man who combined deep philological with thorough mathe-
matical and astronomical knowledge, Professor Ideler, (the
father,) was the first person who explained and dispelled the
confusion of ideas which had previously existed on this
subject. I permit myself to introduce here the remarks
that clear-sighted and highly-informed writer has communi-
cated to me on this important subject.

*' At a very early period of the world the Phoenicians ven-
tured beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. They built Gades
and Tartessus on* the Spanish, and Lixus and several other

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 145

towns on the Mauritania!! coasts of the Atlantic, They
sailed along those coasts northwards to the Cassiterides where
they obtained tin, and to the Prussian coast from whence
they brought amber; and southwards, past Madeira, to the
Cape de Yerde Islands. They visited/ among other places,
the Canaries, and were struck by the appearance of the lofty
Peak of Teneriffe, enhanced by its rising immediately from
the sea. Through the colonies which they sent to Greece,
and especially through that which came under Cadmus to
Boeotia, the notice of this mountain rising high above the
region of clouds, and of the " Fortunate Islands," adorned
with fruits of every kind, and especially with the golden
orange, spread into Greece. Here the tradition was propa-
gated by the songs of the bards, and thus reached Homer.
He speaks in the Odyssey (i. 52) of an " Atlas who knows
all the depths of the sea, and who supports the great pillars
which divide heaven and earth from each other." He
speaks, too, in the Iliad, of the Elysian fields, which he
describes as a lovely land in the west. (II. iv. 561.) Hesiod
expresses himself in a similar manner respecting Atlas,
who he makes a neighbour of the nymphs the daughters of
Hesperus. (Theog. Y. 517.) He calls the Elysian fields,
which he places at the western limit of the earth, the islands
of the Blest. (Op. et dies, v. 167.) Later poets have
added further embellishments to these myths of Atlas,
of the Hesperides, their golden apples, and the Islands of
the Blest, assigned as the dwelling-place of the virtuous
after death ; and have combined with them the expeditions of
the Tyrian god of trade, Melicertes (the Grecian Hercules).

VOL. I. L

146 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

" The Greeks only began at a very late date to rival the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in navigation. They visited
the coasts of the Atlantic it is true, but never appear to have
penetrated far into the ocean. I doubt whether they ever
saw the Canaries and the Peak of Teneriffe. They believed
that Atlas, which their poets and legends described as a
very high mountain placed at the western limit of the earth,
must be sought on the west coast of Africa. It was placed
there also by their later geographers, Strabo, Ptolemy, and
others. As there is not any single mountain distinguished
by its elevation in north-western Africa, the true situation
of Mount Atlas has been a subject of perplexity; and it has
been sought, sometimes on the coast, sometimes in the inte-
rior, sometimes near the Mediterranean, and sometimes
further towards the south. It became the custom (in the
first century of our era, when the Roman arms penetrated
into the interior of Mauritania and Numidia,) to give the
name of Atlas to the African chain of mountains which
runs from west to east almost parallel with the coast of the
Mediterranean. Pliny and Solinus were, however, very
sensible that the descriptions of Mount Atlas given by the
Greek and Eoman poets were not applicable to this long
mountain chain ; and they therefore thought it necessary to
transfer the Atlas, of which they gave a picturesque descrip-
tion in accordance with the poetic legends, to the terra
incognita of Central Africa. According to what has been
said, the Atlas of Homer and Hesiod can only be the Peak
of Teneriffe; and the Atlas of the Greek and Roman
geographers must be in Northern Africa."

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 147

I will only add the following remarks to this instructive
discussion by Professor Ideler. According to Pliny and
Solinus, Atlas rises from a sandy plain (e medio arenarum) ;.
and elephants (which certainly were never known in Tene-
rift'e) feed on its declivity. What we now term Atlas is a
long ridge. How came the Romans to recognise in this
long ridge the isolated conical mountain of Herodotus?
May not the reason be found in the optical delusion by
which every mountain chain seen in profile, in the prolon-
gation of its direction, has the appearance of a narrow cone ?
I have often seen in this manner, from the sea, the ends of
long chains or ridges, which might be taken for isolated
mountains. According to Host the Atlas is covered near
Morocco with perpetual snow, which implies an- elevation of
above 1800 toises, or 11510 English feet. It is also
remarkable that, according to Pliny, the " Barbarians/' i. e.
the ancient Mauritanians, called the Atlas " Dyris." The
chain of the Atlas is still called by the Arabs Daran, a word
which has almost the same consonants as Dyris. Hornius,
on the other hand (de Originibus Americanorum, p. 195),
thinks that he recognises the word Dyris in the Guanche
name of the Peak of Teneriffe, Aya-Dyrma. On the con-
nection between purely mythical ideas and geographical
traditions, and on the way in which the Titan Atlas gave
occasion to the image of a mountain supporting the heavens,
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, see Letronne's "Essai sur
les Idees cosmographiques qui se rattachent au nom d' Atlas,"
in Eerussac's Bulletin universel des Sciences, Mars 1831,
p. 10.

148 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Considering that our present (it is true, very limited)
geological knowledge of the mountainous parts of North
Africa does not make us acquainted with any trace of vol-
canic eruptions within historic times, it is very remarka-
ble to find among the ancients so many indications of a
belief in the existence of this class of phenomena,, in the
Western Atlas, and in the neighbouring west coast of the
continent. The streams of fire, so often mentioned in
Hanno's ship-journal, may indeed have only been strips of
burning grass, or signal fires kindled by the wild inhabitants
of the coasts to give to. each other notice of the danger
threatened by the appearance of the hostile vessels. The
lofty flame-enlightened summit of the " chariot of the gods"
(Qe&v oxrifjia), may recall obscurely the Peak of Teneriffe ;
but farther on Harmo describes a singular conformation of
ground. He finds in the Gulf near the Western Horn, a
large island, and in it a salt lake which again contains a
smaller island. South of the bay of the Gorilla Apes, the
same conformation is repeated. Is this a description of
coral productions, of "lagoon islands, (Atolls)" or volcanic
"crater lakes" in the middle of which a cone has been
upheaved ? The Triton lake was not in the neighbourhood
of the lesser Syrtis, but near the Atlantic coast. (Asie
Cent. T. i. p. 179.) The lake disappeared in consequence
of earthquakes which were accompanied by great out-
bursts of fire. Diodorus (Lib. iii. 53, 55) says expressly,
?ri/poe £K-0vr»/juara jueTaXa. But the most wonderful con
formation is ascribed to the " hollow Atlas" in a passage
hitherto little noticed, occurring in one of the philosophic

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 149

Dialexes of Maximus Tyrius. This Platonic philosopher
lived in Rome, under Commodus. The situation of his
Atlas is "on the continent, where the Western Lybians
inhabit a projecting peninsula. The mountain has in it
towards the sea a semicircular deep abyss. The precipices
are so steep that- they cannot be descended ; the abyss below
is filled with trees, and " one looks down upon their summits,
and on the fruits which they bear, as if one was looking into
a well." (Maximus Tyrius, viii., 7, ed. Markland.) The
description is so graphic and so individually marked, that it
doubtless conveys the recollections impressed by a real
prospect.

(23) p. II.— "The Mountains of the Moon. Djebel al
Komr."

The Mountains of the Moon of Ptolemy (Lib. iv. cap. 9,)
(creXrjvrjQ opoe) form on our older maps an immense unin-
terrupted mountain zone, traversing Africa from east to
west. The existence of these mountains appears certain;
but their extent, their distance from the Equator, and their
general direction, are all unsolved problems. I have already
alluded in another work, (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 191, and note
297, Engl. ed.) to the manner in which a closer acquaintance
with Indian languages, and with the ancient Persian idiom,
the Zend, teaches us that part of the geographical nomen-
clature of Ptolemy forms an historic monument of the
commercial connection of the west with the most distant
regions of Southern Asia and Eastern Africa. The same
direction of ideas shews itself in a question very recently

150 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

brought forward. It is asked, whether the great geographer
and astronomer of Pelusium meant in the name of "Moun-
tains of the Moon/'' as in that of the "Island of Barley"
(Jabadiu, Java), merely to give the Greek translation of a
native name ; — whether (as is most probable) El Istachri,
Edrisi, Ibn-al-Yardi, and other early Arabian geographers,
only transferred the nomenclature of Ptolemy into their own
language ; — or whether they were misled by similarity in the
sound of the words and the manner of writing. In the notes
to the translation of Abd-Allatif s celebrated description of
Egypt, my great instructor, Silvestre de Sacy, (ed. de 1810,
p. 7 and 353,) says expressly : " On traduit ordinairement
le nom de ces montagnes que Leon Africain regarde comme
les sources du Nil, par montagnes de la lune, et j'ai suivi
cet usage. Je ne sais si les Arabes ont pris originairement
cette denomination de Ptolemee. On peut croire qu'ils
entendent effectivement aujourd'hui le mot A-« dans le
sens de la lune en le prono^ant ' Kamar* ; je ne crois pas
cependant que $'ait et6 Topinion des anciens ecrivains arabes
qui prononcent, comme le prouve Makrizi, Komr. Aboulfeda
rejette positivement 1' opinion de ceux qui prononcent kamar,
et qui derivent ce nom de celui de la lune. Comme le
inot komr, considere comme pluriel de -_A_J|, signifie
un objet d'une couleur verdatre on d'un blanc sale, suivant
Fauteur du Kamous, il paroit que quelques ecrivains out
cru que cette montagne- tiroit son nom de sa couleur."

The learned Eeinaud, in his recent excellent translation of
Abulfeda (T. ii., P. i., p. 81-82), considers it probable that
the Ptolemaic interpretation of the name, by " Mountains

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 151

of the Moon" (fy'7 ff£\rjvaia)} was that originally adopted by
the Arabian writers. He remarks that in the Moschtarek
of Yakut, and in Ibn-Said, the mountains are written al-
Komr, and that Yakut writes in the same way the name of
the island of Zendj (Zanguebar) . The Abyssinian traveller
Beke, in his learned critical memoir on the Nile and its
tributaries (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of
London, vol. xvii. 1847, p. 74-76), seeks to prove that
Ptolemy had merely formed his <TE\r}vrjg gooc from a
native name, for which he was indebted to intelligence
received through the medium of the extensive commercial
intercourse which prevailed. He says, "Ptolemy knew
that the Nile rises in the mountainous country of Moezi ;
and in the languages which extend over a great portion of
South Africa (for example, in the languages of Congo,
Monjou, and Mozambique), the word Moezi signifies the
inoon. A great south-western country was called Mono-
Muezi, or Mani-Moezi, i. e. the land of the king of Moezi
(of the king of the Moon country), for in the same family
of languages in which Moezi or Muezi signifies the Moon,
Mono or Mani signifies a king. Alvarez, in the Yiaggio
nella Ethiopia (Eamusio, vol. i., p. 249,) speaks of the
f regno di Manicongo/ the kingdom of the king of Congo.'"
Beke's opponent, Ayrton, seeks the origin of the White Nile
(Bahr el Abiad), not as do Arnaud, Werne, and Beke,
near the equator, or even south of it (and in 29° E. long,
from Paris, or 81° 22' from Greenwich), but with Antoine
d'Abbadie far to the north-east, in the Godjeb and Gibbe
of Erieara (Iniara) ; therefore in the high mountains of

152 STEPPES AND. DESERTS.

Habesch, in 7° 20' N. latitude, and 33° E. long, from
Paris, or 35° 22' from Greenwich. He conjectures that
the Arabs, from a similarity of sound, may have interpreted
the native name Gama.ro belonging to the Abyssinian
mountains, in the south-west of Gaka in which the Godjeb
(or White Nile ?) has its source, to mean Moon Mountains
(Djebel al-Kamar) ; so that Ptolemy himself, familiar with
the intercourse between Abyssinia and the Indian Ocean,
may have taken the Semitic version, 'given by early Arab
immigrants. (Compare Ayrton in the Journal of the Eoyal
Geogr. Soc. vol. xviii. 1848, p. 58, 55, and 59-63, with
Fred* Werners instructive expedition for the discovery of
the sources of the Me, Exped. zur Entd. der Nil-Quellen,
1848, S. 534-536.

The lively interest which has again been excited in
England for the discovery of the most southern sources of
the Nile, induced the above-named Abyssinian traveller,
Charles Beke, at the recent meeting of the British Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science, held at Swansea,
August 1848, to develope more in detail his ideas respect-
ing the connection between the Mountains of the Moon
and the Mountains of Habesch. He says : — " The
Abyssinian elevated plain, generally above 8000 feet high,
extends towards the south to nearly 9° or 10° 1ST. lati-
tude. The eastern declivity of the highlands has to the
inhabitants of the coast the appearance of a mountain
chain. The plateau at its southern extremity passes into
the Mountains of the Moon, which run, not east and west,
but parallel to the coast, or from NNE. to SSW. ; extending

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 153

from 10° N. to 5° S. latitude. The sources of the White Nile
are situated in the Mono-Moezi country, probably in &J-° S.,
not far from where the river Sabaki, on the eastern side
of the Mountains of the Moon, falls into the Indian Ocean
near Melindeh, north of Mombaza. Last autumn (Ib4»7)
the two Abyssinian missionaries Eebmann and Krapf were
still on the coast of Mombaza. They have established in
the vicinity, among the Wakainba tribe^ a missionary station
called Eabbay Empie, which promises to be very useful
also for geographical discovery. Families belonging to the
Wakamba tribe have advanced to the west five or six
hundred miles into the interior of the country, as far as
the upper course of the river Lusidji, the great lake Nyassi
or Zambeze (5° S. lat.?), and the sources of the Nile
which are not far distant. An expedition to these sources,
which Herr Priedrich Bialloblotzky, of Hanover, is pre-
paring to undertake, (by the advice of Beke), is to set out
from Mombaza. The Nile coming from the west referred
to by the ancients is probably the Bahr-el-Ghazal, or Keilah,
which falls into the Nile in 9° N. lat., above the mouth
of the Godjeb or Sobat."

Kussegger's scientific expedition, — which by Mehemet
Ali's desire was sent to the gold-washings of Fazokl on
the Blue (Green) Nile, Bahr-el-Azrek, in 1837 and
1838, — had made the existence of the " Mountains of the
Moon" appear very doubtful. The Blue Nile, the Astapus
of Ptolemy, issuing from the lake of Coloe (now called
lake Tzana) winds from amongst the colossal Abyssinian
mountains; but towards the south-west an extensive low

1 54 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

tract of country appears. The three exploring expeditions
sent by the Egyptian government, (one in November 1839
from Charium to the confluence of the Blue and the White
Nile, under the command of Selim Bimbashi ; another in
the autumn of 1840, which was accompanied by the French
engineers Arnaud, Sabatier, and Thibaud ; and a third iu
August 1841), first unveiled the high mountains which,
between the parallels of 6° — 4°, and probably still farther
to the south, run at first from west to east, and after-
wards from north-west to south-east, and approach the
left bank of the Bahr-el-Abiad. The second of Mehemed
Ali's expeditions first saw the mountain chain, according
to Werne's account, in lat. 1 1 J°, where Gebel Abul and
Gebel Kutak rise to 3400 (3623 Eng.) feet. The high
land continued and approached nearer to the river more
to the south, between 4|° lat., to the parallel of the
island of Tschenker in 4° 4', where the expedition of
Commander Selim and Eeizulla Eifendi terminated. The
shallow river makes its way between rocks, and detached
mountains rise again in the country of Bari to 3000 (3197
Eng.) feet. These probably belong to the Mountains of
the Moon as represented in .our most recent maps, although
they are not indeed mountains covered with perpetual snow
such as Ptolemy had described (lib. iv. cap. 9). The
limit of perpetual snow in these latitudes would not certainly
be found below an elevation of 14500 (15450 Eng.) feet.
Perhaps Ptolemy transferred to the country of the sources
of the White Nile the knowledge which he may have had
of the high mountains of Habesch, which are nearer to

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 155

Upper Egypt and to the Red Sea. In Godiam, Kaffa,
Miecha, and Sami, the Abyssinian mountains rise to 10000
and 14000 (10657 and 14920 Eng.) feet, according to
exact measurements; not according to Bruce^ who gives
the elevation of Chartum exceedingly wide of the truth,
«. e., 4730 (5041 Eng.) feet, instead of 1430 (1524 Eng.)
feet ! Euppell, one of the most accurate observers of the
present day, found Abba Jaret, in 13° 10' of latitude,
only 66 (70 Eng.) feet lower than Mont Blanc. (Compare
Euppell, Eeise in Abyssinien, Bd. i. S. 414, and Bd. ii.
S. 443). Euppell found, adjoining the Buahat, an elevated
plain 13080 (13939 Eng.) feet above the Bed Sea, barely
covered with a small quantity of fresh fallen snow (Hum-
boldt, Asie Centrale, T. iii. p. 272). The celebrated in-
scription of Adulis, which Niebuhr considers to be some-
what later than Juba and than Augustus, also speaks of
Abyssinian snow " that reaches to the knees." This is, I
believe, the earliest mention in antiquity of snow within the
tropics (Asie Centrale, T. iii. p. 235) ; as the Paropanisus
is 12° of latitude north of the northern limit of the torrid
zone.

Zimmermann's map of the countries about the Upper
Nile shews the dividing line which determines the basin of
the Great Eiver, and separates it on the south-east from the
domain of the rivers which flow into the Indian Ocean ; —
that is to say, from the Doara, which enters the sea north
of Magadoxo; from the Teb, which has its embouchure
on the Amber coast, near Ogda ; and from the Goschop,
whose abundant stream is formed by the confluence of

156 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

the Gibu and the Zebi, and which he distinguishes from
the Godjeb, rendered celebrated since 1839 by Antoine
d'Abbadie, the missionary Krapf, and Beke. These
results of the travels of Beke, Krapf, Iseuberg, Russeger,
Biippell, Abbadie, and Werne, brought together and shewn
in the most comprehensive and convenient manner by
Zimmermann, were hailed by me on their appearance in
1843 with the most lively joy, as expressed in a letter to
Carl Bitter. "If/' I wrote to him, " a life prolonged to
an advanced period brings with it several inconveniences
to the individual, and perhaps some even to those who live
with him, there is a compensation in the delight of being
able to compare older states of knowledge with that which
now exists, and to see great advances in knowledge grow
and develope themselves under our eyes in departments
where all had long slumbered in inactivity, with the
exception, perhaps, of attempts by hypercriticism to render
previous acquisitions doubtful. This enjoyment has from
time to time fallen to our share, yours and mine, in our
geographical studies, and this particularly in reference to
those very parts of the world which formerly could only be
treated of with timid hesitating uncertainty. The confor-
mation of a continent depends in its leading traits on
several plastic relations which are usually among the latest
to be discovered and unravelled. A new and excellent
work of our friend Carl Zimmermann, on the upper country
of the Nile and the eastern parts of central Africa, has
again brought these considerations very vividly before me.
His new map shews in the clearest manner to the eye, by

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 157

means of a particular method of shading, what is still
unknown, and what, by the courage and perseverance of
travellers of all nations, — among whom our own countrymen
happily hold an important place, — has been already
disclosed to us. It is a valuable service, and one which
opens the way for farther advances and more comprehensive
inferences, when persons, thoroughly acquainted with the
existing, often widely scattered, materials, — men who do not
merely draw and compile, but compare, select, and, where-
ever it is possible, check and control the routes of travellers
by astronomical determinations of position, — undertake to
represent graphically the results of the elements of knowledge
possessed at the time. Those who have themselves given
to the world so much as you have done, have an especial
right to expect much ; since their combinations have largely
augmented the number of connecting points ; yet I believe
that when you executed your great work on Africa in 1822
you could hardly have expected so many accessions as we
have now received." The knowledge acquired is, indeed,
often only that of rivers, their direction, their branches,
and the various synonyms by which they are called in
dialects belonging to different families of languages; but
rivers reveal to us by their course the form of the surface
of the earth, and are at once the nourishers of vegetation,
the channels of intercourse between men, and pregnant with
unknown influences on the future.

The northerly course of the White Nile, and the south-
easterly course of the great Goschop, would indicate that a

158 STEPPES AND DESEETS.

swelling of the ground separates the domains or basins of
these rivers. We know, indeed, but imperfectly, how such a
swelling or elevation may be connected with the mountains of
Habesch, and in what manner it may be continued southward
beyond the equator. Probably, and this is also the opinion
of my friend Carl Eitter, the Lupata mountains, which,
according to the excellent "Wilhelm Peters, extend to
26° S. latitude, are connected with the elevated parts of
the Earth's surface on the north side of the equator, (or
with the Abyssinian mountains), by the mountains of the
Moon. The word " Lupata/' we learn from the last-named
African traveller, is used in the language of Tette as an
adjective, meaning " closed." The chain of mountains would
thus be called the "closed" or "barred." "The Lupata chain,
of Portuguese writers," says Peters, " is about 90 legoas or
leagues from the mouth of the Zainbeze, and is only about
two thousand feet high. The direction of this mountain
rampart is north and south, but with occasional bends
alternately to the east and to the west. It is sometimes
interrupted by plains. Along the whole of the Zanzibar
coast, the traders into the interior speak of this long but
not very elevated ridge, which extends from 6° to 26° S.
latitude, as far as the Factory of Lourenzo-Marques, on
the Eio de Espiritu Santo (in the Bay da Lagoa, or Delagoa
Bay of the English). The farther the Lupata chain
advances towards the soath, the nearer it approaches the
coast, from which it is only fifteen legoas distant at Lourenzo-
Marques."

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 159

(24) p. 12. — "Caused by the great revolving current. '
In the northern part of the Atlantic, between Europe,
North Africa, and the New Continent, the waters of the
ocean are driven round in a true revolving current, or circle.
This general current, — which, from its cause, might be
called a " Rotation Current," — moves between the tropics,
as is well known, with the trade wind, from east to west. It
accelerates the passage of ships sailing from the Canaries
to South America, and makes it almost impossible to sail
" up stream," or in a direct line from Cartagena de Indias
to Cumana. This set to the west, attributed to the trade
winds, receives, however, in the Caribbean Sea, the accession
of a much stronger movement, originating in a very remote
cause, which was discovered as early as 1560 by Sir Hum-
phrey Gilbert, (Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 14), and
developed with greater certainty by Rennell in 1832. The
Mosambique current, flowing from north to south between
Madagascar and the east coast of Africa, sets on the La-
gullas Bank, turns on the north side of it round the south
point of Africa, and advances with much force up the
western coast of the Continent to a little beyond the equator
near the Island of St. Thomas. It gives at the same time
a north-westerly direction to a part of the water of the
South Atlantic, causing it to strike Cape St. Augustin, and
to follow the coast of Guiana to beyond the mouth of the
Orinoco, the Boca del Drago, and the coast of Paria.
{Rennell, Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic
Ocean, 1832, p. 96 and 136.) The New Continent, from

L60 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

the Isthmus of Panama to the northern part of Mexico,
opposes a barrier to the farther continuance of this move-
ment- of the waters, and thus the current is constrained to
assume a northerly course off Yeragua, and thence to follow
the windings of the coast of Costa Rica, Mosquito, Cam-
peachy, and Tabasco. The waters which enter the Mexican
Gulf between Cape Catoche of Yucatan and Cape San
Antonio of Cuba, after completing a great rotatory move-
ment or circuit, by Yera Cruz, Tamiagua, the mouth of
the Rio Bravo del Norte, and that of the Mississipi,
force their way northwards through the Bahama Channel,
and re-issue into the open ocean. Here they form the well-
known " Gulf Stream," a current or river of warm and rapidly
moving water, flowing in an oblique or diagonal direction
carrying it farther and farther from the North American
coast. Ships from Europe bound for this coast, when
uncertain in respect to their longitude, are enabled by
this oblique direction of the current to direct their course,
as soon as they reach the Gulf Stream, by observations of
latitude only. The position of this great current was first
indicated with accuracy by Franklin, Williams, and Pownall.
Prom the 4 1st degree of latitude, the river of warm
water, which has been gradually diminishing in rapidity
and increasing in breadth, turns suddenly to the east. It
almost touches the southern edge of the great Newfound-
land bank, where I found the greatest amount of difference
between the temperature of the warm water of the Gulf
stream, and that of the waters resting on the banks and
subjected thereby to a cooling process. Before the stream

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 161

reaches the westernmost of the Azores it divides into two
branches, one of which, at least at certain seasons, advances
towards Ireland and Norway, and the other towards the
Canaries and the West Coast of Africa. This Atlantic
rotatory movement, (described by me in more detail in the
first, volume of my Yoyage to the Equinoctial Eegions),
explains the possibility of trunks of South American and
West Indian trees being carried, in spite of the trade winds,
to the coasts of the Canary Islands, and stranded there. I
have made many experiments on the temperature of the Gulf
Stream in the vicinity of the Banks of Newfoundland. The
Stream brings the warmer water of lower latitudes into more
northern regions with much rapidity, and I have thus found
its temperature two or three degrees of Reaumur (5° to 7°
Fall.) higher than that of the adjacent unmoved masses of
water, which form as it were the banks of the warm
oceanic river.

The flying fish of the tropics (Exocetus volitans) ac-
companies the warm water of the Gulf Stream far into the
temperate zone. Floating sea- weed (Pucus natans), chiefly
taken up by the stream in the Gulf of Mexico, shews when
a ship is entering the current, and the arrangement of the
branches of the sea- weed shews the direction of the move-
ment of the water. The mainmast of the English ship of
war, the Tilbury, destroyed by fire on the coast of San
Domingo, was carried by the Gulf Stream to the north coast
of Scotland. Even casks filled with palm oil, the remains
of the cargo of a ship wrecked off Cape Lopez on the coast

VOL. I." M

162 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of Africa, were carried in the same manner to Scotland*,
after having twice traversed the whole breadth of the
Atlantic ; once from east to west with the equitorial
current between 2° and 12° N. lat., and once from west to
east by the aid of the Gulf Stream, between 45° and 55°
N. lat. Rennell, in p. 347 of the " Investigation of
Currents/' relates the voyage of a bottle with papers en-
closed, thrown overboard by the English ship Newcastle
on the 20th of January, 1819, in lat. 38° 52', and long.
63° 58', which was picked up on the 2nd of June, 1820,
at the Rosses, (near the Island of Arran), on the west coast
of Ireland. A short time before my arrival at Teneriffe a
stem of South American cedar (Cedrela odorata), well
covered with lichens, had been cast ashore in the harbour
of Santa Cruz.

Effects of the Gulf Stream in stranding on the Islands
of Fayal, Mores, and Corvo in the Azores, bamboos,
artificially cut pieces of wood, trunks of an unknown
species of Pine from Mexico and the West Indian Islands,
and corpses of men of unknown race with unusually broad
faces, contributed to the discovery of America, by con-
firming Columbus in his belief of the existence to the west-
ward of Asiatic countries and islands at no impassable

[* The circumstance referred to was even more remarkable. Casks
of palm oil, part of the cargo of the ship wrecked near Cape Lopez
were conveyed by the current to Finmarken, and stranded near the
North Cape. Vide Editor's note in the English translation of
" Cosmos," vol. i. p. xcvii.] — Tr.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 163

distance. The great discoverer even heard from the lips of
settlers near the Cape de la Yerga in the Azores, of some,
" who, in sailing westward, had met decked or covered boats,
manned by persons of strange and foreign appearance,
and built apparently in such a manner that they could not
founder,— almadias con casa movediza que nunca se hunden."
There is highly credible and well-confirmed testimony to
the fact, much as it has long been doubted, of natives of
America, (probably Esquimaux from Greenland or Labra-
dor), carried by currents or driven by storms from the North
West, having actually crossed the Atlantic in their canoes
and reached our shores. James Wallace, in his "Account of
the Islands of Orkney, (1700, p. 60)," relates, that in 1682
a Greenlander was seen in his boat off the South Point of
the Island of Eda by several persons, who did not succeed
in bringing him to shore. In 1 684, a Greenland fisherman
appeared in his boat off the Island of Westram. In the
church at Barra there was suspended an Esquimaux boat,
driven thither by currents and tempests. The inhabitants of
the Orkneys call Greenlanders so appearing among them
Finns or " Ehmmen."

In Cardinal Bembo's History of Venice, I find a narra-
tive to the effect that in 1508 a French ship captured near
the English coast a small boat, with seven persons of a
strange and foreign appearance. The description suits ex-
tremely well with Esquimaux, (homines erant septem medi-
ocri statura, colore subobscuro, lato et patente vultu,
cicatriceque una violacea signato.) No one understood
their language. Their clothing was composed of fish sJdus

164 STEPPES AND DESEETS.

sewn together. On their heads they wore " coronam e cul-
mo pictam, septem quasi auriculis intextam." They ate raw
flesh, and drank blood as we would wine. Six of the men
died during the passage of the vessel, on board which they
had been taken ; but the seventh, a youth, was presented
to the king of France, who was then at Orleans. (Bembo,
Historia Venetse, ed. 1718, lib. vii. p. 257).

The appearance of men called Indians on the western
coasts of Germany, under the Othos, and under Frederic
Barbarossa, in the 10th and 12th centuries, and even,
as is related by Cornelius Nepos, (ed. Van Staveren,
cur. Bardili, T. ii., 1820, p. 356), Pomponius Mela, (lib.
iii. cap. 5, § 8), and Pliny, (Hist. Nat., T. ii. p. 67),
when Quintus Metellus Celer was Pro-consul in Gaul,
may be explained by similar effects of currents and north-
west winds of long continuance. A king of the Boii,
others say of the Suevi, gave the shipwrecked dark-coloured
men to Metellus Celer. Gomara, in his Historia Gen. de
las Indias, (Saragossa, 1553, fol. vii.), refers to this account,
and considers the Indians spoken of in it to have been
natives of Labrador. " Si ya no fuesen de Tierra del La-
brador, y los tuviesen, los Romanos por Indianos engailados
en el color/' The appearance of Esquimaux on the north-
ern coasts of Europe may be believed to have occurred more
often in earlier times, because we know, from the researches
of Eask and Finn Magnusen, that in the llth and 12th
centuries this race extended in considerable numbers,
under the name of the Skralinges of Labrador, even as far
south as the " good Vinland ;'

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 165

chusets and Connecticut. (Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 270 ; Eng-
lish ed. p. 234 ; Examen critique de FHist. de la Geographie,
T. ii. p. 247-278.)

As the winter cold of the most northern parts of Scan-
dinavia is softened by the influence of the Gulf Stream,
by which American tropical fruits (cocoa nuts, and seeds
of the Mimosa scandens and the Anacardium occidentale)
are cast upon the shore beyond the 62nd degree of latitude,
so does Iceland also occasionally enjoy the beneficial influence
of the extension of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream
far to the northward. The coasts of Iceland as well as
those of the Faroe Islands, receive a great deal of drift-
wood, which, coming formerly in greater abundance, was
cut into beams and planks and used for building timber.
Fruits of tropical plants, collected on the coast of Iceland,
between Raufarhavn and Vapnafiord, testify the movement
of the waters from the southward. (Sartorius von "Walters-
hausen, physisch-geographische Skizze von Island, 1847,
S. 22-35.)

(25) p. 12. — "Neither Lecideas nor other Lichens"

In northern countries, the earth, if left bare, soon becomes
covered with Bseomyces roseus, Cenomyce rangiferinus,
Lecidea muscorum, L. icmadopliila, and similar Cryptoga-
mea3, which prepare the way for the growth of grasses and
herbaceous plants. In the tropics, where mosses and lichens
only abound in shady places, some species of succulent
plants take their place.

166 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(26) p. 13. — "The care of animals yielding milk,

The ruins of the Aztec fortress"

The two kinds of cattle alluded to, and subsequently spoken
of, — the Bos americanus and Bos moschatus, — are peculiar
to the American continent. But the natives —

Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nee jungere tauros.

Virgil, JEn. i. 316.

— drink the fresh blood, not the milk, of these animals.
Single exceptions have indeed been found, but only among
tribes who at the same time cultivated maize. I have
before remarked, (p. 54), that Gomara speaks of a people in
the north-west of Mexico who possessed herds of tame
bisons, and derived from these animals clothing, meat, and
drink. The drink may have been the blood, (Prescott,
Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 416) for, as I have more
than once remarked, the dislike to milk, or at least the
absence of its use, appears, before the arrival of Europeans,
to have been, generally speaking, a feature common to all
the natives of the New Continent, — and one which they
possess in common with the inhabitants of China and
Cochin China, who yet were near neighbours to true pastoral
nations. The herds of tame lamas, found in the highlands
of Quito, Peru, and Chili, belonged to a settled population,
who cultivated the ground and did not follow a nomadic
life. Pedro de Ciega de Leon, (Chronica del Peru, Sevilla,
1553, cap. 110, p. 264) seems to imply, though certainly
as a rare and exceptional case,- that in the Peruvian moun-
tain plateau of Collao lamas were used for drawing the

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 167

plough. (Compare Gay, Zoologia de Chile, Mamiferos,
1847, p. 154.) The usual custom in Peru was to plough
with men only. (See the Inca Garcilaso's Comrnentarios
reales, P. i. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 133 ; and Prescott, Hist, of
the Conquest of Peru, 1847, vol. i. p. 136.) Mr. Barton
has made it appear probable that, among some of the tribes
of Western Canada, the buffalo was from early times made
an object of care for the sake of its flesh and skin. (Frag-
ments of the Nat. Hist, of Pennsylvania, P. i. p. 4.) In
Peru and Quito the lama is now nowhere found in a state of
original wildness. I was told by the natives that the lamas
on the western declivity of the Chimborazo had become wild
when the ancient residence of the rulers of Quito "Lican"
was laid in ashes. In the same manner the oxen in the Ceja
de la Montana, in Middle Peru, have become perfectly wild :
they are a small and daring race, and often attack the Indians.
The natives call them Yacas del Monte, or Vacas cimarronas.
(Tschudi, Fauna Peruana, S . 2 5 6 . ) Cuvier' s opinion, that the
lama had descended from the still wild Guanaco, has been
unfortunately still further disseminated by the meritorious
traveller Meyen, (Eeise urn die Erde, Th. iii. S. 64), but
has been completely refuted by von Tschudi.

The Lama, the Paco or Alpaca, and the Guanaco, are
three originally distinct species of animals. (Tschudi, S.
228 and 237.) The Guanaco (Huanacu in the Quichua
language) is the largest of the three; and the Alpaca,
measured from the ground to the crown of the head, the
smallest. The lama is next to the guanaco in stature.
Herds of lamas, when they are as numerous as I have seen

168 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

them in the high plateau between Quito and Riobaraba,
are a great ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of
Chili appears to be a mere variety of the lama. Vicunas,
Guanacoes, and Alpacas, still live wild at elevations of from
13000 to 16000 feet above the level of the sea. The two
latter species are sometimes met with tamed, but the guanaco
only rarely. The alpaca does not bear the warmer climate
of the lower elevations so well as the lama. Since the
introduction of the more useful horses, mules, and asses,
(the latter acquire great spirit and beauty within the tro-
pics), the custom of rearing and using the lama and the
alpaca as beasts of burden, in the mountains and among
the mines, has much decreased. But the wool, of such
different qualities in respect to fineness, is still an important
article in the industry of the inhabitants of the mountains.
In Chili the wild and the tamed guanaco are distinguished
by separate names; the wild being called Luan, and the
tame Chilihueque. The wide dissemination of the wild
guanaco, from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego,
sometimes in herds of 500, has been favoured by the cir-
cumstance that these animals can swim with great ease from
island to island, so that the Patagonian fiords offer no
obstacle to their wanderings.- (See the pleasing descriptions
by Darwin in his Journal, 1845, p. 66.)

South of the Gila River, which, together with the Bio
Colorado, enters the Californian Gulf or Mar de Cortes,
stand, in the solitude of the Steppe, the enigmatical ruins of
the Aztec Palace, called by the Spaniards las Casas grandes.
When the Aztecs, about the year 1160, came from the un-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 169

known land of Aztlan to Anahuac, they settled themselves
for a time on the banks of the Gila. The Franciscan monks,
Garces and Font, are the latest travellers who have visited
the Casas grandes, and they did so in 1773. They stated
the ruins to extend over above a square German mile (16
English square miles). The whole plain is strewed with
fragments of painted pottery. The principal palace, (if a
house built of unburut clay can be so designated), is 447
English feet long and 277 English feet broad. (See a
rare work printed in Mexico, and entitled Cronica serafica y
apostolica del Colegio de Propaganda Fide de la Santa Cruz
de Queretaro por Fr. Juan Domingo Arricivita).

The Taye of California, as drawn by Father Venegas,
appears to differ little from the Ovis musimon of the Old
Continent. The same animal is also seen on the " Stony
Mountains," near the sources of the Peace Biver. Very
different from it, on the other hand, is the small white and
black spotted goat-like creature which feeds near the
Missouri and Arkansas rivers. The synonymy of Antilope
furcifer, A. tememazama of Smith, and Ovis montana, is still
very undetermined.

(27) p. 14). — " The cultivation of farinaceous grasses"

The original habitat of the farinaceous grasses is wrapped
in the same obscurity as that of the domestic animals which
have accompanied man since his earliest migrations. The
German word for corn, " Getraide," has been ingeniously
derived by Jacob Grimm from the old German gitragidi,
getregede. " It is as it were the tame fruit (fruges, frumen-

170 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

turn), which has come into the hands of man ; as we speak
of tame animals in opposition to wild ones." (Jacob Grimm,
Gesch. der deutschen Sprache, 1848, Th. i. S. 62.) It is
certainly a very striking phenomenon, to find on one side of
our planet nations to whom flour or meal from small-eared
grasses (Hordeacese and Avenacese), and the use of milk,
were completely unknown, while -the nations of almost all
parts of the other hemisphere cultivate the Cerealia, and
rear milk-yielding animals. The cultivation of different
kinds of grasses may be said to afford a characteristic dis-
tinction between the two parts of the world. In the New
Continent, from 52° north to 46° south latitude, we see
only one species cultivated, viz. maize. In the Old Conti-
nent, on the other hand, we find every where, from the
earliest times of history, the fruits of Ceres, wheat, barley,
spelt or red wheat, and oats. That wheat grew wild in the
Leontine fields, as well as in several other places in Sicily,
was a belief entertained by ancient nations, and is mentioned
by Diodorus Siculus. (Lib. v. p. 199 and 232, Wessel.)
Ceres was found in the alpine meadow of Enna ; and Dio-
dorus fables that "the inhabitants of the Atlantis were
unacquainted with the fruits of Ceres, because they had
separated from the rest of mankind before those fruits had
been shewn to mortals." Sprengel has collected several
interesting passages which lead him to think it probable that
the greater part of our European kinds of grain were
originally wild in the northern parts of Persia and India,
namely, summer wheat in the country of the Musicanes, a pro-
vince in Northern India (Strabo, xv. 1017) ; barley (" anti-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 171

quissimum frumentum," as Pliny calls it, and which is also
the only cereal with which the Guanches of, the Canaries were
acquainted), according to Moses of Chorene (Geogr, Armen.
ed. Winston, 1736, p. 360), on the Araxes or Kur in
Georgia, and according to Marco Polo in Balascham in
Northern India (Ramusio, vol. ii. p. 10) ; and spelt or red
wheat, near Hamadan. But these passages, as has been
shewn by my keen-sighted friend and teacher Link, in an
instructive critical memoir (Abhandl. de Berl. Akad.
1816, S. 123), still leave much uncertainty. I also
early regarded the existence of originally wild kinds of grain
in Asia as extremely doubtful, and viewed such as might
have been seen there as haying become mild. (Essai sur la
Geographic des Plantes, 1805, p. 28.) Eeinhold Porster,
who before his voyage with Captain Cook, made by order of
the Empress Catherine an expedition into Southern Russia
for purposes of natural history, reported that the two-
stalked summer barley (Hordeum distichon), grew wild near
the junction of the Samara and the Yolga. At the end of
the month of September, 1829, Ehrenberg and myself, on
our journey from Orenburg and Uralsk to Saratow and the
Caspian, also herborised on the banks of the Samara. We
were, indeed, struck with the quantity of wheat and rye
plants growing in what might be called a wild state in the
uncultivated ground, but the plants did not appear to us to
differ from the ordinary cultivated ones. Ehrenberg received
from M. Carelin a kind of rye, Secale fragile, gathered on
the Kirgis Steppe, and which Marschall von Bieberstein
regarded for a time as the original or mother plant of our

172 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

cultivated rye, Secale cereale. Although Olivier and
Michaux speak of spelt (Triticum spelta) as growing wild at
Hamadan in Persia, Achill Richard does not consider that
Michaux' s herbarium bears out this statement. Greater
confidence is due to the most recent accounts obtained by
the unwearied zeal of a highly-informed traveller, Professor
Carl Koch. He found much rye (Secale cereale, var. p,
pectinata) in the Pontic Mountains, at elevations of upwards
of five or six thousand feet, in places where within the
memory of the inhabitants no grain of the kind had ever
been cultivated. Koch remarks, that the circumstance is
"the more important because with us this grain never pro-
pagates itself spontaneously." In the Schirwan parts of the
Caucasus, Koch collected a kind of barley which he calls
" Hordeum spontaneum," and considers to be the originally
wild " Hordeum zeocriton" of Linnaeus. (Carl Koch
Beitrage zur Mora des Orients, Heft i. S. 139 and 142.)

A negro slave of the great Cortes was the first who culti-
vated wheat in New Spain. He had found three grains of
it amongst the rice which had been brought from Spain for
provision for the army. In the Franciscan convent at
Quito, I saw preserved as a relic the earthen vessel which
had contained the first wheat sowed there by the Franciscan
monk Fray Jodoco Rixi, a native of Ghent in Flanders.
The first sowing had been made in front of the convent,
on what is now the Plazuela de San Francisco, after cut-
ting down the forest which then extended from the foot
of the volcano of Pichincha to the spot in question. The
monks, who I often visited during my stay at Quito, begged

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 173

me to explain to them the inscription on the earthen
vessel, which they thought must contain some mystic refer-
ence to the wheat. I read the motto, which was in the
old German dialect, and was — "Whoso drinks from me
let him not forget his God/' I too felt with the monks
that this old German drinking vessel was a truly venera-
ble relic. Would that there had been preserved every
where in the New Continent the names, not of those who
made the earth desolate by bloody conquests, but of those
who first intrusted to it these its fruits so early asso-
ciated with the civilisation of mankind in the Old Continent !
In respect generally to the names of the kinds of grain, as
bearing on the original affinities of different languages, a
high authority has remarked, that " such indications are
much more rare in the case of different kinds of grain, and
on subjects of agriculture, than on those connected with
the care of cattle : herdsmen when dispersed had still much
in common, whereas the subsequent cultivators of the soil
had to create new words. But the fact that in comparison
with the Sanscrit, Romans and Greeks appear nearly on a
par with the Germans and Slavonians, argues in favour of
the very early contemporaneous emigration of the two
latter. Yet the Indian a Java" (F^jnentum hordeum),
compared with the Lithuanian " jawai/' and the Finnish
" jywa," offers a singular exception." (Jac. Grimm, Gesch.
der deutschen Sprache, Th. i. S. 69.) -

(28) p. 14. — " Keeping by preference to the cooler
mountain regions?

Throughout Mexico and Peru the traces of a great degree

174 STEPPES AND DESEKTS.

of civilisation are confined to the elevated plateaux. "We
have seen on the Andes the ruins of palaces and baths at
heights between 1600 and ISOOtoises (10230 and 11510
English feet). It can only have been men of a northern
race, who., migrating from the north towards the south, could
find delight in such a climate.

(29) p. 15. — " The history of the peopling of Japan"

The probability of the western nations of the New Con-
tinent having had communication with the east of Asia long
before the arrival of the Spaniards, was I think shewn by
me in a work on the monuments of the native inhabitants
of America (Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens des peuples
indigenes de TAmerique). I inferred this probability from
a comparison of the Mexican and Thibeto- Japanese calendars,
— from the correct orientation of the steps of the pyramidal
elevations towards the different quarters of the heavens, —
and from the ancient myths and traditions of the four ages
or four epochs of destruction of the world, and the dispersion
of mankind after a great flood of waters. The accounts
published since my work, in England, France, and the
United States, describing the wonderful bas reliefs, almost
in the Indian style, in the ruins of Guatimala and Yucatan,
have given to these analogies a still higher value. (Com-
pare Antonio del Eio, Description of the Ruins of an
Ancient City discovered near Palenque, 1822, translated
from the original manuscript report by Cabrera (del Rio's
exploration took place in 1787), p. 9, tab. 12-14; with
Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, 1843, vol. i.
pp. 391 and 429-434; vol. ii. pp. 21, 54, 56, 317, 323;

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 175

with the magnificent volume of Catherwood, "Yiews of
ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and
Yucatan," 1844 ; and lastly, with Prescott's " Conquest of
Mexico," vol. iii. App. p. 360.)

The architectural -remains in the peninsula of Yucatan
shew, still more than those of Palenque, a degree of civilisa-
tion and art which excites our astonishment. They are
situated between Valladolid, Merida, and Campeachy, chiefly
in the western part of the country. But the monuments in
the island of Cozumel (more properly Cuzarnil), east of
Yucatan, were the first which were seen by the Spaniards
in the expedition of Juan de Grijalva, 1518, and that of
Cortes in 1519, and the report of them did much to spread
over Europe a high idea of ancient Mexican civilisation.
The most important ruins of the peninsula of Yucatan,
which unfortunately have not yet been thoroughly measured
and drawn by architects, are the Casa del Gobernador of
Uxmal, the Teocallis and vaulted constructions at Kabah, the
ruins of Labnah with domed columns, those of Zayi with
columns very nearly of the Doric order, and those of Chiche
with large ornamented pilasters. An old manuscript written
in the Maya language by a Christian Indian, and which is
still in the hands of the Gefe politico of Peto, Don Juan
Pio Perez, gives the different epochs ("Katunes" of 52
years) in which the Toltecs settled in different parts of the
peninsula. Erom these data Perez infers that the monu-
ments or buildings of Chiche go back to the close of the
fourth century of our era, while those of Uxmal belong to
the middle of the tenth century. But the accuracy of these

176 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

conclusions is subject to much uncertainty. (Stephens,
Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, vol. i. p. 439 ; and vol. ii.
p. 278.)

I regard the existence of ancient connections between
the inhabitants of western America and eastern Asia as
more than probable, but by what routes, or with what
Asiatic nations, the communications took place, cannot at
present be decided. A small number of individuals of the
educated priestly caste might perhaps be sufficient to bring
about great alterations in the civil and social state of
western America. The stories formerly narrated of Chinese
expeditions to the New Continent really apply only to
voyages to Fusang or Japan. On the other hand, Japanese
and Sian-Pi from the Corea may have been driven by storms
to the American coast, and landed there. We know as
matter of history that Bonzes and other adventurers sailed
over the eastern Chinese seas in search of some medicine
which should entirely prevent death. Under Tschin-schi-
kuang-ti, 209 years before our era, 800 young couples,
young men and young women, were sent to Japan, and
instead of returning to China they settled at Nipon (Klap-
roth, Tableaux historiques de TAsie, 1824, p. 79; Nouveau
Journal Asiatique, T. x. 1832, p. -335; Humboldt, Examen
critique, T. ii. p. 62-67). May not similar expeditions have
been driven by storms or other accidents to the Aleutian
islands, to Alashka, or to New California ? As the western
coasts of the American continent trend from NW. to SE.,
and the eastern coasts of Asia in the opposite direction, or
from NE. to SW., the distance between the two continents

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 177

in 45° of latitude, or in the temperate zone which is most
favourable to mental development, is too considerable to
admit of the probability of such an accidental' settlement
taking place in that latitude. We must, then, assume the
first landing to have been made in the inhospitable climate
of from 55° to 65°, and that the civilisation thus intro-
duced, like the general movement of population in America,
has proceeded by successive stations from north to south
(Humboldt, Mat. historique, t. iii. p. 155-160). The
remains of ships from Cathay, i. <?., from Japan or China,
were supposed to have been found on the coasts of the
northern Dorado, (called Quivira and Cibora) at the be-
ginning of the 16th century (Gomara, Hist, general de las
Indias, p. 117).

Our knowledge of the languages of America is still too
limited, considering their great variety, for us as yet
entirely to relinquish the hope of some day discovering an
idiom which may have been spoken, with certain modifi-
cations, at once in the interior of South America and in
that of Asia; or which may at least indicate an ancient
affinity. Such a discovery would certainly be one of the
most brilliant which can be expected in reference to the
history of mankind. But analogies of language only deserve
confidence when the enquirer, not resting in or dwelling on
resemblances of sound in the roots, traces the analogies
into the organic structure, the grammatical forms, and into
all which in languages shews itself as the product of the
human intellect and character.

VOL. I. N

178 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(30) p. 15. — "Many other forms of animals"

Whole herds of the Cervus mexicanus wander over
the Caraccas Steppes : the young stag is spotted, and
resembles in appearance the roe-deer of Europe. We saw
among them many entirely white, — a singular circum-
stance in the torrid zone. The Cervus mexicanus is not
found at greater elevations on the mountain-slopes of the
Andes under the equator than from 700 to 800 toises
(4476 to 5115 Eng. feet); but a larger, and also often
white, stag, — which I could hardly distinguish from the
European by any specific characters, — is met with up to
2000 toises (12789 Eng. feet). The Cavia capybara,
called in the province of Caraccas " chiguire," is an unfor-
tunate animal ; being pursued in the water by the crocodile,
and on the plain by the tiger or jaguar. It runs so badly
that we could often catch it with our hands. Its extremi-
ties are smoked for hams, but their taste is very disagreeable
from the smell of musk ; and on the Orinoco we willingly
ate monkey hams in preference. The beautifully marked
animals which have so disagreable an odour are the Yiverra
mapurito, Yiverra zorilla, and Yiverra vittata.

(31) p. 16. — " The Gttaranis, and the fan-palm,
Mauritia"

The small coast tribe or nation of the Guaranis, (called
in British Guiana the Warraws or Guaranos, and by the
Caribs U-ara-u), inhabit not only the marshy Delta and

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 179

river network of the Orinoco, and particularly the banks
of the Manamo Grande and the Cano Macareo, but also
extend, with little variation in their modes of life, along
the sea coast between the mouths of the Essequibo and
the Boca de Navios of the Orinoco. (Compare my Rela-
tion historique, T. i. p. 492, T. ii. p. 653 and 703, with
Richard Schomburgk's " Reisen in Britisch Guiana," Th. i.
1847, S. 62, 120, 173, and 194). According to the
testimony of the last-named excellent explorer and observer,
there are still 1700 Warraus or Guaranis living in the
district of Ciunaca, and along the banks of the Barima
river, which empties itself into the gulf of the Boca de
Navios. The manners and customs of the tribes living in
the Delta of the Orinoco were already known to the great
historical writer Cardinal Bembo, the contemporary of
Columbus, Amerigo Yespucci, and Alonzo de Hojeda. He
says, "quibusdam in locis piopter paludes incolse domus
in arboribus sedificant" (Historise Yenetse, 1551, p. 88).
It is more probable that Bembo is alluding to the Guaranis
at the mouth of the Orinoco, than to the natives near the
mouth of the Gulph of Macaraibo, where Alonzo de Hojeda,
in August 1499, when he was accompanied by Yespucci
and Juan de la Cosa, also found a population having
their residence "fondata sopra T acqua come Yenezia"
(Riccardi's Text in my Examen crit. t. iv. p. 496). In
Yespucci' s account of his voyage (in which we find the
first indication of the etymology of the term Province of
Yenezuela, Little Yenice, for Province of Caraccas), he

180 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

only speaks of houses raised upon foundation pillars, not of
habitations in the trees.

Sir Walter Raleigh offers a later evidence of high
authority ; he says expressly, in his description of Guiana,
that on his second voyage in 1595, when in the mouth of
the Orinoco, he saw the "fires3 of the Tivitives and the
Oua-raa-etes (so he calls the Guaranis) " high up in the
trees" (Ealeigh, Discov. of Guiana, 1596, p. 90). The fire
is represented in a drawing in the Latin edition : " brevis et
admiranda descriptio regui Guianse," (Norib. 1599) tab. 4.
Ealeigh was also the first who brought to England the fruit
of the Mauritia-palm, which he very justly compared, on
account of its scales, to a fir cone. The Padre Jose
Gumilla, who twice visited the Guaranis as a missionary,
says, indeed, that this people had their habitation in the
palmares (palm groves) of the morasses; but he only
mentions dwellings raised upon high pillars, and not scaf-
foldings attached to trees still in a growing state j (Gumilla,
Historia natural, civil, y geografica de las Naciones situadas
en las riveras del Eio Orinoco, nueva imp. 1791, p. 143,
145, and 163). Hillhouse and Sir Eobert Schomburgk,
(Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society, vol. xii. 1842,
p. 175; and Description of the Murichi or Ita Palm, read
at the Meeting of the British Association held at Cambridge,
June 1845 ; printed in Simond's Colonial Magazine), are
of opinion that both Bembo and Ealeigh, (the former
speaking from the reports of others, the latter as an eye-
witness), were deceived by the high tops of the palm-trees

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 181

being lit up at night by the flames of fires beneath, so
that those who sailed by thought the habitations themselves
were attached to the trees. "We do not deny that m
order to escape the attacks of the musquitos, the Indian
sometimes suspends his hammock from the tops of trees ;
on such occasions, however, no fires are made under the
hammock." (Compare also Sir Eobert Schomburgk's New
Edition of Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, 1848, p. 50.)

According to Martius, the fine Palm Moriche, Mauritia
flexuosa, Quiteve, or Ita palm, (Bernau, Missionary Labours
in British Guiana, 1847, p. 34 and 44), belongs, as well
as Calamus, to the group of Lepidocaryeae or Coryphinese.
Linnaeus has described it very imperfectly, as he erroneously
considers it to be leafless. The trunk grows as high as
26 feet, but it probably requires from 120 to 150 years
to reach this height. The Mauritia extends high up on
the declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission,
where I have found it in great beauty. Ii forms in moist
places fine groups of a fresh shining verdure, which reminds
us of that of our Alder groves. The trees preserve the
moisture of the ground by their shade, and hence the
Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water round its
roots by a mysterious attraction. By a somewhat similar
theory they advise that serpents should not be killed ; because
the destruction of the serpents and the drying up of the
pools or lagunas accompany each other : thus the untutored
child of nature confounds cause and effect. Gumilla terms
the Mauritia flexuosa of the Guaranis the tree of life,
arbol de la vida. It grows in the mountains of Eonaima,

182 STEVPES AND DESERTS.

east of the sources of the Orinoco, as high as 4000 (4263
Eng.) feet. On the unvisited banks of the Rio Atabapo,
in the interior of Guiana, we discovered a new species
of Mauritia with prickly stems, our Mauritia aculeata;
(Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth, Nova Genera et Species
Plantarum, t. i. p. 310).

(32) p. 16.— "An American Stylites"

The founder of the sect of the Stylites, the fanatical
pillar-saint Simeon Sisanites, the son of a Syrian herdsman,
is said to have passed thirty-seven years in religious contem-
plation on the summits of five successive pillars/each higher
than the preceding. The last pillar was 40 ells high.
He died in the year 461. For seven hundred years there
continued to be men who imitated this manner of life, and
were called " sancti columnares" (pillar saints). Even iu
Germany, in the Diocese of Treves, it was proposed to
erect such aerial cloisters, but the Bishops opposed the
undertaking (Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. 1755, p. 215.)

(33) p. 17. — " Towns on the banks of the streams
which flow through the Steppe"

Families who live not by agriculture but by the care of
cattle, have congregated in the middle of the Steppe in
small towns, which, in the cultivated parts of Europe,
would hardly be regarded as villages. Such are Calabozo,
in 8° 56' 14" N. lat. and 67° 42' long, according to my
observations, Villa del Pao, lat 8° 38' 1", long. 66° 57',
S. Sebastian, and others.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 183

P*) p. 17 .— " Conical-shaped clouds."

The singular phenomenon of these "sand spouts/' —
something analogous to which may occasionally be seen on
a small scale in Europe where four roads meet, — is par-
ticularly characteristic of the Peruvian Sand Desert between
Amotape and Coquimbo. Such a dense cloud of sand or
dust may prove dangerous to the traveller who does not
cautiously avoid its approach. It is also worthy of notice
that these partial conflicting currents of air only arise
when the air generally is perfectly calm. The aerial ocean
resembles the sea in this respect, for in the latter also the
small currents which are often heard to ripple audibly,
(filets de courant), are only perceptible in a dead calm
(calme plat).

(35) p. 18. — " Increases the suffocating heat!'

I have observed in the Llanos de Apure, at the Guada-
lupe cattle farm, the thermometer rise from 27° to 29°
Reaumur (92°.7 to 97°.2 Mir.) whenever the hot wind
began to blow from the Desert, which at such times was
covered either with sand or with short withered turf. In
the middle of the sand-cloud the temperature was for some
minutes 35° E. (111° P.). The dry sand in the village of
San Fernando de Apure had a temperature of 42° R.
(126° Pahr.)

(36) p. 18. — t: The illusive image of a cool rippling

watery mirror"
The well-known phenomenon of the mirage is called in

184 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Sanscrit the "thirst of the gazelle." (See my Relation
historique, T. i. pp. 296 and 625; T. ii. p. 161.) All
objects appear to hover in the air, and are at the same time
seen reflected in the lower stratum of air. At such times
the entire desert assumes the aspect of the wave-covered
surface of a wide spread lake. Palm trees, cattle, and
camels, sometimes appear inverted on the horizon. In the
French expedition to Egypt, the soldiers, parched with
thirst, were often brought by this optical illusion into a
state of desperation. This phenomenon has been remarked
in all quarters of the globe. The ancients were acquainted
with the remarkable refraction of the rays of light in the
Lybian Desert. I find mention made in Diod. Sic. lib. iiu
p. 184, Ehod. (p. 219, Wessel), of extraordinary illus- \
images, an African Fata Morgana, with most extravagant
explanations of the supposed conglomeration of the particles
of air.

(37) p. 19.__« The Melon-Cactus."

The Cactus melo cactus is often 10 to 12 inches in
diameter, and has usually 1 4 ribs. The natural group of
Cactacese, the whole family of Nopaleae of Jussieu, belong ex-
clusively to the New Continent. The cactuses assume a great
variety of shapes : ribbed and melon-like (Melo cacti) ; articu-
lated or jointed (Opuntiae); forming upright columns or
pillars (Cerei) ; serpentine and creeping (Bhipsalides) ; or
provided with leaves (Pereskise). Many extend high up the
sides of the mountains. Near the foot of the Chimborazo,
in the elevated sandy plain around Riobaiuba, 1 have found
a new kind of Pitahaya, the Cactus sepium, even at a height

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 185

of 10,000 (10,660 Eng.) feet. (Huinboldt, Bonpland, and
Kunth, Synopsis Plantarum sequinoct. Orbis novi, T. iii.
p. 370).

(38) p. 19. — " The scene in the Steppe is
suddenly changed."

1 have endeavoured to depict the coming in of the rainy
season, and the signs by which it is announced. The usual
deep dark azure of the sky in the tropics arises from
the more complete solution of the vapour contained in the
atmosphere. The cyanometer indicates a paler blue as soon
as the vapours begin to be precipitated. The dark spot or
patch in the constellation of the Southern Cross gradually
•comes indistinct as the transparency of the atmosphere
diminishes, and this alteration announces the near approach
of rain. The brightness of the Magellanic clouds, (Nubecula
major and minor), gradually vanishes in a similar manner.
The fixed stars, which before shone like planets with a
steady, tranquil, and not trembling light, now scintillate
even in the zenith, where the vapours are least. (See
Arago, in my Relation hist. T. i. p. 623). All these appear-
ances are the results of the increased quantity of vapour
diffused in the atmosphere.

(39) p. 20. — " Awakened from a torpid state ly the
first fall of rain"

Extreme dryness produces in plants and animals the same
phenomena as does the withdrawal of the stimulus of heat.
Many tropical trees and plants shed their leaves during the dry

186 STEPPES AND DESEB-TS.

season. The crocodiles and other amphibious animals hide
themselves in the mud, where they lie apparently dead, like
animals in a state of hybernation or plunged into winter
sleep by cold. (See my Relation historique, T. ii. pp. 192
and 626.)

(40) p. 20. — " The aspect of a vast inland sea."

Nowhere are these inundations more extensive than in
the network of rivers formed by the Apure, the Arachuna,
Pajara, Arauca, and Cabuliare. Large vessels sail across
the country over the Steppe for 40 or 50 miles.

(41) p. 21. — "To the mountain plateau of
Antisana."

The great mountain plain or plateau surrounding the
volcano of Antisana is 2107 toises (13473 English feet),
above the level of the sea. The atmospheric pressure at
this elevation is so small that the wild cattle, when hunted
with dogs, bleed from the nose and mouth.

(42) p. 22.— " Bera and Rastro."

I have described the capture of the Gymnoti in detail in
another place. (Observations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic
comparee, vol. i. p. 83-87 ; and Relation historique, T. ii.
p. 173-190). M. Gay Lussac and I found the experiment
without a circuit succeed perfectly with a living Gymnotus,
which was still very vigorous when brought to Paris. The
discharge is solely dependent on the will of the animal.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 187

We did not see any spark, but other physicists have done
so on several occasions.

(43) p. 23. — "Awakened by the contact of moist
dissimilar particles"

In all parts of organic bodies dissimilar substances are
in contact with each others in all, solids are associated
with fluids. Thus, wherever there is organization and life,
there is also electric tension or the play of the voltaic pile,
as the experiments of Nobili and Matteucci, and especially
the latest admirable labours of Emil du Bois, teach us. The
last named physicist has succeeded in "manifesting the
presence of the electric muscular current in living and
wholly uninjured animal bodies :" he shews that " the
human body, through the medium of a copper wire, can
cause a magnetic needle at a distance to be deflected at
pleasure, first in one and then in the opposite direction."
(Untersuchungen iiber thierische Electricetat, von Emil du
Bois-Reymond, 1848, Bd. i. S. xv.) I have witnessed
these movements produced at pleasure, and have had the grati-
fication of seeing thereby great and unexpected light thrown
on phenomena to which I had laboriously and hopefully
devoted several years of my youth.

(44) p. 23.—" Osiris and Typhon"

On the conflict between two races of men, the Arabian
pastoral people in Lower Egypt, and the agricultural race in
Upper Egypt who were in a more advanced state of civilisa-
tion, on the fair-haired Prince Baby or Typhon, who founded

188 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Pelusium, and on the dark-complexioned Dionysos or
Osiris, see Zoega's ancient, and now for the most part
abandoned views, in his great work " De Origine et Usu
Obeliscorum," p. 577.

(45) p. 24. — " The boundary of a partial European

cultivation ."

In the Capitania general de Caracas, as generally every
where on the eastern shores of America, the cultivation
introduced by Europeans, and their presence and influence,
are limited to a narrow strip of country along the coast.
In Mexico, New Granada, and Quito, on the other hand,
European civilisation has penetrated deep into the interior
of the country, and advanced up the ridges of the Cordil-
leras. There existed in these last-named regions a consi-
derable degree of settled and civilised life previous to the
arrival of the Spaniards ; and they have followed this civili-
sation wherever they found it, regardless whether its seat
was near or at a distance from the sea coast. They retained
and enlarged the ancient cities, of which they either muti-
lated the old significant Indian names, or gave them new
names, as, for example, of Christian saints.

(46) p. 24. — " Massive leaden-coloured granite rocks"

In the Orinoco, and more especially at the Cataracts of
Maypures and Atures, all blocks of granite, and even white
pieces of quartz, whenever they are touched by the water of
the river, acquire a greyish-black coating which scarcely
penetrates a hundredth of a line below the surface of the rock.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 189

The appearance produced is that of basalt, or fossils co-
loured with graphite. The crust appears to contain man-
ganese and carbon ; I say appears, for the phenomenon has
not yet been thoroughly examined. Something similar was
remarked by Rozier on the syenite rocks of the Nile, near
Syene and Philse ; by the unfortunate Captain Tuckey on
the rocky banks of the Congo ; and by Sir Robert Schom-
burgh on the Berbice. (Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko,
S. 212.) On the Orinoco these leaden-coloured rocks
are considered to give out pernicious exhalations when
wet; and their proximity is believed to produce fevers.
(Rel. hist. T. ii. p. 299-304.) In the Rio Negro, and
generally in the South American rivers which have " black
waters/' "aguas negras," or waters of a coffee-brown or
yellow tint, no such effects take place. No black colour
is imparted to the granite rocks by the waters ; that is to say,
they do not act upon the stone so as to form from its con-
stituent particles a black or leaden-coloured crust.

(47) p. 24. — " The rain-announcing howlings of the
bearded apes."

The melancholy howlings of the small apes, Simia seni-
culus, Simia beelzebub, &c., are heard some hours before
the rain commences : it is as if the tempest were heard
raging at a distance. The intensity of the noise produced
by such small animals can only be explained by their
number ; seventy or eighty being often lodged in a single
tree. On the organs of voice of these animals, see my ana-
tomical treatise in the first chapter of my Recueil d'Obser-
vations de Zoologie, vol. i. p. 18.

190 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

(48) p. 24.—" Often covered with birds."

The crocodiles lie so motionless that I have seen flamingos
(Phcenicopterus) resting on their heads; the body at the
same time being covered with aquatic birds, like the trunk
of a tree.

(«) p. 24.—" Down his swelling throat."

The saliva with which the boa covers his prey hastens the
process of decomposition ; the muscular flesh thus becomes
softened into such a gelatinous state, that he can force entire
limbs of larger, and bodies of smaller, animals down his
throat without division. The Creoles call this gigantic
serpent from these circumstances, " Tragavenado," which
means " Stag swallower:" they tell fabulous stories of
snakes being seen with the antlers of a stag (which it was
impossible to swallow) sticking in their throats. I have
several times seen the boa swimming in the Orinoco,
and in the smaller forest streams, the Tuamini, the Temi
and the Atabapo. It holds its head above the water like a
dog. Its skin is finely spotted. It is said to attain a length
of 48 feet ; but the largest skins which have as yet been
brought to Europe and carefully measured do not exceed
21 to 23 feet. The South American boa (which is a
Python) differs from the East Indian. On the Ethiopian
boa, see Diodor. lib. iii. p. 204, ed. Wesseling.

(50) p. 25. — " Using ants, gums, and earth as food"
It was a very prevalent report on the coasts of Cumana,
New Barcelona, and Caraccas, visited by the Franciscan

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 191

monks of Guiana on their return from the missions, that
there were men on the banks of the Orinoco who ate earth.
"When, in returning from the Rio Negro, we descended the
Orinoco in thirty-six, days, we passed the day of the 6th of
June, 1800, in the Mission inhabited by the earth-eating
Otomacs. This little village is called La Concepcion de
Uruana, and is very picturesquely situated at the foot of
a granite rock. I found its geographical position to be
7° 8' 8" N. lat., and 67° 18' W. long.' from Greenwich.
The earth which the Otomacs eat is a soft unctuous clay ; a
true potter's clay, of a yellowish-grey colour due to a little
oxide of iron. They seek for it in particular spots on the
banks of the Orinoco and the Meta, and select it with care.
They distinguish the taste of one kind of earth from that of
another, and do not consider all clays as equally agreeable
to eat. They knead the earth into balls of about five or
six inches diameter, which they burn or roast by a weak fire
until the outside assumes a reddish tint. The balls are
remoistened when about to be eaten. These Indians are
generally wild uncultivated beings, and altogether averse to
any kind of tillage. It is a proverb even among the most
distant of the nations living on the Orinoco, when speak-
ing of anything very unclean, to say that it is " so dirty,
that the Otomacs eat it."

As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are
low these Indians live on fish and river tortoises. They
kill the fish with arrows when at the surface of the water, a
pursuit in which we have often admired their great dexte-
rity. During the periodical swelling of the rivers the taking

192 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

of fish ceases, for it is as difficult to fish in deep river water
as in the deep sea. It is in this interval, which is of two
or three months' duration, that the Otomacs swallow great
quantities of earth. "We have found considerable stores of
it in their huts, the clay balls being piled together in pyra-
midal heaps. The very intelligent monk, Pray Ramon
Bueno, a native of Madrid (who lived twelve years among
these Indians), assured us that one of them would eat from
three quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter in a
day. According to the accounts which the Otomacs them-
selves give, this earth forms their principal subsistence
during the rainy season, though they eat at the same time
occasionally, when they can obtain it, a lizard, a small fish,
or a fern root. They have such a predilection for the clay,
that even in the dry season, when they can obtain plenty
of fish, they eat a little earth after their meals every day
as a kind of dainty. These men have a dark copper-brown
complexion, and unpleasing Tartar features. They are fat,
but, not large-bellied. The Franciscan monk who lived
among them as a misssionary, assured us that he could
perceive no alteration in their health during the earth-eating
season.

The simple facts are therefore as follows :-rThe Indians eat
large quantities of earth without injury to their health ; and
they themselves regard the earth so eaten as an alimentary
substance, i.e. they feel themselves satisfied by eating it, and
that for a considerable time ; and they attribute this to the
earth or clay, and not to the other scanty articles of subsist-
ence which they now and then obtain in addition. If you

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 193

inquire from an Otoraac about his winter provision, (in
tropical South America the rainy season is usually called
winter), he points to the heap of clay balls stored in his hut.
But these simple facts by no means determine the questions,
whether the clay be really an alimentary substance ? whether
earths be capable of assimilation ? or whether they merely
serve to appease hunger by distending the stomach? I
cannot pretend to decide these questions. (Bel. hist. T. ii.
p. 618-620.) It is curious that the usually credulous and
uncritical Father Gumilla positively denies the earth-eating
as such. (Historia del Bio Orinoco, nueva impr. 1791,
T. i. p. 179.) He affirms that the balls of clay had maize-
meal and crocodile-fat mixed with them. But the mis-
sionary, Fray Bamon Bueno, and our friend and travelling
companion, the lay brother Fray Juan Gonzalez, who was
lost ut sea off the Coast of Africa with part of our collec-
tions, both assured us that the Otomacs never mix croco-
dile fat with the clay ; and of the meal said to be mixed with
it we heard absolutely nothing during our stay in Uruana.
The earth which we brought back with us, and which
Vauquelin analysed, is thoroughly pure and unmixed. May
Gumilla, by a confusion of things wholly distinct, have been
alluding to the preparation of bread from the long pod of a
kind of Inga, which is previously buried in the earth in order
to hasten the commencement of the first stage of decay ?
That the health of the Otomacs should not suffer from eating
so much earth appears to me particularly remarkable. Have
they become accustomed to it in the course of several
generations ?

VOL. i. o

194 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

In all tropical countries, human beings shew an extraor-
dinary and almost irresistible desire to swallow earth ; and
not alkaline earths, which they might be supposed to crave
to neutralize acid, but unctuous and strong-smelling clays.
It is often necessary to confine children to prevent them
from running out to eat earth immediately after a fall of
rain. I have observed with astonishment the Indian
women in the village of Banco on the Magdalena River,
whilst engaged in shaping earthen vessels on the potter's wheel,
put great lumps of clay into their mouths. The same thing
was remarked at an earlier period by Gili. (Saggio di
Storia Americana, T. ii. p. 311.) Wolves alsa eat earth,
and especially clay, in winter. It would be important to
examine carefully the excrements of animals and men that
eat earth. With the exception of the Otomacs, individuals
of all other races who indulge for any length of time the
strange desire of earth-eating have their health injured by
it. At the mission of San Borja, we saw the child of an
Indian woman, who, his mother said, would hardly eat
anything but earth. He was, however, wasted nearly to a
skeleton.

Why is it that in the temperate and cold zones this morbid
craving for eating earth is so much more rare, and is almost
entirely confined, when it is met with, to children and preg-
nant women ; while in the tropics it would appear to be
indigenous in all quarters of the globe? In Guinea the
negroes eat a yellowish earth, whieh they call Caouac.
When -brought as slaves to the West Indies, they try to
obtain a similar earth, and affirm that in their own country

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 195

the habit never did them any harm. In the American
Islands they were made ill by it, and it was forbidden in
consequence ; but a kind of earth (un tuf rouge jaunatre)
was, in 1751, sold secretly in the market in Martinique.
"Les negres de Guinee disent que dans leur pays ils
mangent habituellement une certaine terre, dont le gout leur
plait, sans en etre incommodes. Ceux qui sont dans 1'abus
de manger du Caouac en sont si friands qu'il n'y a pas de
chatiment qui puisse les empecher de devorer de la terre."
(Thibault de Chanvalon, Voyage a la Martinique, p. 85.)
In the Island of Java, between Sarabaya and Samarang,
Labillardiere saw small square reddish-coloured cakes exposed
for sale in the villages. The natives called them tana ampo
(tanah, in Malay and Javanese, signifies earth). On examina-
tion and enquiry he found that the cakes consisted of reddish
clay, and that they were eaten. (Voyage a la Eecherche de
la Perouse, T. ii. p. 322.) The edible clay of Samarang
has recently been sent to Berlin by Mohnike, in 1847, in
the shape of rolled tubes, like cinnamon, and has been
examined by Ehrenberg. It is a fresh-water formation
deposited on limestone, and consisting of microscopic
Polygastrica, Gaillonella, Naviculas, and Phytolitharia.
(Bericht iiber die Verhandl. der Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin,
aus dem J. 1848, S. 222-225.) The inhabitants of New
Caledonia, to appease their hunger, eat pieces as big as
the fist of friable steatite, wliich Vauquelin found to contain
in addition no inconsiderable quantity of copper. (Voyage
a la Eecherche de la Perouse, T. ii. p. 205.) In Popayan,
and several parts of Peru, calcareous earth is sold in the

196 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

streets as an eatable for the Indians ; it is used with Coca
(the leaves of the Erythroxylon pemvianum.) Thus we find
the practice of eating earth diffused throughout the torrid '
zone, among indolent races inhabiting the finest and most
fertile parts of the globe. But accounts have also come
from the North, through Berzelius and Betzius, according
to which, hundreds of cartloads of earth containing Infusoria
are said to be annually consumed by the country people,
in the most remote parts of Sweden, as breadmeal, and
even more from fancy (like the smoking of tobacco) than
from necessity ! In Finland this kind of earth is occasion-
ally mixed with the bread. It consists of empty shells of
animalculae, so small and soft that they do not crunch
perceptibly between the teeth; it fills the stomach, but
gives no real nourishment. In periods of war, chronicles
and documents preserved in archives often give intimation
of earths containing infusoria having been eaten ; speaking
of them under the vague and general name of " mountain
meal/' It was thus during the Thirty Years' War in
Pomerania (at Camin) ; in the Lausitz (at Muskau) \ and
in the territory of Dessau (at Klieken) ; and subsequently
in 1719 and 1733 at the fortress of Wittenberg. (See
Ehrenberg iiber das unsichtbar wirkende organische Leben,
1842, S. 41.)

(51) p. 25. — " Figures graven on the rock"

In the interior of South America, between the 2d and
4th degrees of North latitude, a forest-covered plain is
enclosed by four rivers, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the B/io

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 197

Negro, and the Cassiquiare. In this district are found rocks
of granite and of syenite, covered, like those of Caicara and
Uruana, with colossal symbolical figures of crocodiles and
tigers, and drawings of household utensils, and of the sun and
moon* At the present time this remote corner of the earth
is entirely without human inhabitants, throughout an extent
of more than 8000 square geographical miles. The tribes
nearest to its boundaries are wandering naked savages, in
the lowest stage of human existence, and far removed from
any thoughts of carving hieroglyphics on rocks. One may
trace in South America an entire zone, extending through
more than eight degrees of longitude, of rocks so orna-
mented; viz. from the Eupuniri, Essequibo, and the
mountains of Pacaraima, to the banks of the Orinoco and
of the Yupura. These carvings may belong to very
different epochs, for Sir Hobert Schomburgk even found
on the Bio Negro representations of a Spanish galiot
(Eeisen in Guiana und am Orinoko, tibersetzt von Otto
Schomburgk, 1841, S. 500), which must have been of a
later date than the beginning of the 16th century; and this
in a wilderness where the natives were probably as rude
tben as at the present time. But it must not be forgotten
that, as I have elsewhere noticed, nations of very different
descent, when in a similar uncivilized state, having the same
disposition to simplify and generalise outlines, and being
impelled by inherent mental dispositions to form rhythmical
repetitions and series, may be led to produce similar signs
and symbols. (Compare Relation hist. T. n. p. 589,
and Martius uber die Physionomie des Pflanzenreichs in
Brasilien, 1824, 8,14.)

198 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

At the Meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London,
on the 17th of November, 1836, there was read a memoir
by Sir Eobert Schomburgk " On the Eeligions Traditions of
the Macusi Indians, who inhabit the Upper Mahu and a
part of the Pacaraima Mountains •" a nation, consequently,
who for a century (since the journey of the adventurous
Hortsmann,) have not changed their residence. Sir Eobert
Schomburgk says : " The Macusis believe that the sole
survivor of a general deluge repeopled the earth by changing
stones into human beings." This myth (the fruit of the
lively imagination of these nations, and which reminds us
of Deucalion and Pyrrha), shews itself in a somewhat altered
form among the Tamanaks of the Orinoco. When asked how
mankind survived the great flood, the " age of waters" of
the Mexicans, they reply without any hesitation, that ' one
man and one woman took refuge on the high mountain of
Tamanacu, on the banks of the Asiveru, and that they then
threw over their heads and behind their backs the fruits of
the Mauritia-palm, from the kernels of which sprang men
and women who repeopled the earth/ Some miles from
Encaramada, there rises, in the middle of the savannah, the
rock Tepu-Mereme, or the painted rock. It shews several
figures of animals and symbolical outlines which resemble
much those observed by us at some distance above Encara-
mada, near Caycara, in 7° 5' to 7° 40' lat. and 66° 28' to
67° 23' W. long, from Greenwich. Eocks thus marked
are found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo
(in 2° 5' to 3° 20' lat.), and what is particularly remarkable,
560 geographical miles farther to the East in the soli-
tudes of the Parime. This last fact is \ laced beyond a

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 199

doubt by the journal of Nicholas Hortsmau, of which I have
seen a copy in the handwriting of the celebrated D'Anville.
That simple and modest traveller wrote down every day, on
the spot, what had appeared to him most worthy of notice,
and he deserves perhaps the more credence because, being
full of dissatisfaction at having failed to discover the objects
of his researches, the Lake of Dorado, with lumps of gold
and a diamond mine, he looked with a certain degree of
contempt on whatever fell in his way. He found, on the
16th of April, 1749, on the banks of the Rupunuri, at the
spot where the river winding between the Macarana moun-
tains forms several small cascades, and before arriving in the
district immediately round Lake Amucu, " rocks covered
with figures/' — or as he says in Portuguese, "de varias
letras." We were shown at the rock of Culimacari, on the
banks of the Cassiquiare, signs which were called characters,
arranged in lines, — but they were only ill-shaped figures of
heavenly bodies, boa-serpents, and the utensils employed in
preparing manioc-meal. I have never found among these
painted rocks (piedras pintadas) any symmetrical arrange-
ment or any regular even-spaced characters. 1 am therefore
deposed to think that the word " letras" in Hortsmann's
journal must not be taken in the strictest sense.

Bchomburgk was not so fortunate as to rediscover the
rocs: seen by Hortsmann, but he has seen and described
others on the banks of the Essequibo, near the cascade of
Waraputa. " This cascade," he says, " is celebrated not
only :or its height but also for the quantity of figures cut
on the rock, which have great resemblance to those which I
have seen in the Island of St. John, one of the Yirgin

200 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Islands, and which I consider to be, without doubt, the
work of the Caribs, by whom that part of the Antilles was
formerly inhabited. I made the utmost efforts to detach por-
tions of the roqk which contained the inscription, and which I
desired to take with me ; but the stone was too hard, and
fever had taken away my strength. Neither promises nor
threats could prevail on the Indians to give a single blow with
a hammer to these rocks, — the venerable monuments of the
superior mental cultivation of their predecessors. They
regard them as the work of the Great Spirit, and the
different tribes who we met with, though living at a great
distance, were nevertheless acquainted with them. Terror
was painted on the faces of my Indian companions, who
appeared to expect every moment that the fire of heaven
would fall on my head. I saw clearly that my endeavours
would be fruitless, and I contented myself with bringing
away a complete drawing of these memorials." The last
determination was certainly the best, and the editor of the
English Journal, to my great satisfaction, adds a note to
the effect that it is to be wished that no one else may be
more successful than Mr. Schomburgk, and that no future
traveller from civilized countries may do anything towards
the destruction of these monuments of the unprotected
Indians.

The symbolical signs seen by Robert Schomburgk in the
Valley of the Essequibo, near the rapids of Waraputa,
(Bichard Schomburgk, Eeisen in Britisch -Guiana, Ih. i.
S. 320), were remarked by him to bear a great resem-
blance to genuine Carib ones in one of the small
Virgin Islands (St, John's) ; but notwithstanding th$ wide

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 201

extent of the- invasions of the Caribs, and the ancient power
of this fine race,. I cannot believe that all the rock engrav-
ings,— which, as I have said, form an immense belt
traversing a great part of South America from west to
east, — are to be regarded as their work. I am inclined
rather to view these remains as traces of an ancient civili-
sation,— belonging, perhaps, to an epoch when the tribes
whom we now distinguish by various appellations were
still unknown. Even the veneration everywhere testified
by the Indians of the present day for these rude sculptures
of their predecessors, shews that they have no idea of the
execution of similar works. There is another circum-
stance which should be mentioned : between Eucaramada
and Caycara, on the banks of the Orinoco, a number of
these hieroglyphical figures are sculptured on the face of
precipices at a height which could now be reached only by
means of extraordinarily high scaffolding. If one asks the
natives how these figures can have been cut, they answer,
laughing, as if it were a fact of which none but a white
man could be ignorant, that "in the days of the great
waters their fathers went in canoes at that height." Thus
a geological fancy is made to afford an answer to the
problem presented by a civilisation which has long passed
away.

Let me be permitted to introduce here a remark
which I borrow from a letter addressed to me by the
distinguished traveller, Sir Eobert Schomburgk. "The
hieroglyphical figures are more widely extended than you
had perhaps rupposed. During my expedition, which had

202 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

for its object the examination of the Corentyn River, I not
only observed some colossal figures on the rock of Timeri
(4£° N. lat. and 57J° W. long.), but I also discovered
similar ones near the great cataracts of the Corentyn, in
4° 21' 30" N. lat. and 57° 55' 30" W. long. These
figures are executed with much greater care than any which
I discovered in Guiana. Their size is about ten feet, and
they appear to represent human figures. The head-dress is
extremely remarkable ; it encompasses the head, spreading
out considerably in breadth, and is not unlike the halos
represented in paintings as surrounding the heads of Saints
and Sacred Persons. I have left my drawings of these
figures in the colony, but I hope some day to be able to
lay them all before the public. I saw ruder figures on the
Cuyuwini, a river which empties itself into the Essequibo
in latitude 2° 16' N., entering it from the north-west ; and
I have since seen similar figures on the Essequibo itself in
1° 40' N, lat. These figures extend, therefore, as ascer-
tained by actual observation, from 7° 10' to 1° 40' N. lai,
and from 57° 30' to 66° 30' W, long. Thus the
zone of pictured rocks extends, so far as it has been at
present examined, over a space of 192000 square geogra-
phical miles, comprising the basins of the Corentyn, the
Essequibo, and the Orinoco; a circumstance from which
we may form some inferences respecting the former amount
of population in this part of the continent.'"

Other remarkable remains of a degree of civilisation which
no longer exists, are the granite vases with graceful labyrin-
thine ornaments, and the earthen masks resembling Roman

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 203

ones, which have been discovered on the Mosquito coast,
among wild Indians. (Archseologia Britan. vol. v. 1779,
p. 318-324 ; and vol. vi. 1782, p. 107.) I have had them
engraved in the "Picturesque Atlas" which accompanies
the historical portion of my Travels to the Equinoctial Re-
gions. Antiquaries are astonished at the similarity of these
ornaments (resembling a well-known Grecian form), to those
of the Palace of Mitla, near Oaxaca, in Mexico. In looking
at Peruvian carvings, I have never remarked any figures of the
large-nosed race of men, so frequently represented in the bas-
reliefs of Paleiique in Guatimala, and in the Aztec paint-
ings. Klaproth remembered having seen individuals with
similar large noses among the Chalcas, a northern Mogul
tribe. It is well known that many tribes of the North
American red or copper-coloured Indians have fine aquiline
noses ; and that this is an essential physiognomic distinction
between them and the present inhabitants of Mexico, New
Granada, Quito, and Peru. Are the large-eyed, compara-
tively fair-complexioned people, spoken of by Marchand as
having been seen in 54° and 58° lat. on the north-west
coast of America, descended from an Alano-Gothic race, the
Uslini of the interior of Asia ?

(52) p. 25. — "Apparently weaponless, and yet prepared
for murder"

The Otomacs often poison the thumb-nail with Curare.
A mere scratch of the nail is deadly if the curare mixes
with the blood. We obtained specimens of the climbing
plant, from the juice of which the curare is prepared, at

204 STEPPES AND DESERTS.

Esmeralda on the Upper Orinoco, but unfortunately we
did not find it in blossom. Judging by its physiognomy it
appears to be related to Strychnos (Eel. hist. T. ii. p. 547*
556). Since the notice in the work referred to of the
curare or ourari (previously mentioned by Raleigh, both as a
plant and as a poison), the brothers Robert and Richard
Schomburgk have done much towards making us accurately
acquainted with, the nature and preparation of this substance,
of which I wa& the first to bring a considerable quantity
to Europe. Richard Schomburgk found the plant in
blossom in Guiana on the banks of the Pomeroon and the
Sururu in the territory of the Caribs, who are not, however,
acquainted with the manner of preparing the poison. His
instructive work (Reisen in Britisch-Guiana, Th. i. S. 441-
461), contains the chemical analysis of the juice of the
Strychnos toxifera> which, notwithstanding its name and
its organic structure) does not contain, according to Bous-
singault, any trace of strychnine. Virchou and Hunter's
interesting physiological experiments make it probable that
the curare or ourari poison does not kill by mere external
absorption, but only when absorbed by living animal sub-
stance of which the continuity has been severed (i. e. which
has been wounded slightly) ; . that it does not belong to the
class of tetanic poisons ; and that its particular effect is to
take away the power of voluntary muscular movement,
whilst the involuntary functions of the heart and intestines
still continue. Compare, also, the older chemical analysis of
Boussingault, in the Annales de Chhme et de Physique,
T. xxxix. 1828, p. 24-37.

THE

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

THB

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

IN the preceding section, which was made the subject of
an academical lecture, I sought to depict those boundless
plains which, according to the varying modification of their
natural characters induced by climatic relations, appear to
us sometimes as Deserts devoid of vegetation, and some-
times as Steppes> or widely-extended grassy plains or
Prairies. In so doing I contrasted the Llanos of the
southern part of the New Continent with the dreadful
seas of sand which form the African Deserts ; and these
again with the Steppes of Central Asia, the habitation of
world-assailing pastoral nations, who at* a former period,
when pressed hitherward from the East, spread barbarism
and devastation over the earth.

If on that occasion, (in 1806,) I ventured to combine
widely distributed portions of the earth's surface in a single
picture of nature, and to entertain a public assembly witli
images whose colouring was in unison with the mournful
disposition of our minds at that epoch, I will now, limiting
myself to a narrower circle 01 phenomena, sketch the more
cheerful picture of river scenery composed of foaming rapids
and rich luxuriant vegetation. I propose to describe in
particular two scenes of nature in the wildernesses of Guiana,
— the celebrated Cataracts of the Orinoco, Atures and

208 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

Maypures, — which, previous to my visit, few Europeans
had ever seen.

The impression left on our minds by the aspect of nature
is frequently determined, less even by the peculiar character
of the strictly terrestrial portion of the scene, than by the
light thrown on mountain or plain, either by a sky of azure
purity, or by one veiled by lowering clouds; and in the
same manner descriptions of nature act upon us more
powerfully or more feebly, according as they are more or
less in harmony with the requirements of our feelings. For
it is the inward mirror of the sensitive mind which reflects
the true and living image of the natural world. All that
determines the character of a landscape, — the outline of the
mountains, which, in the far-vanishing distance, bound the
horizon, — the dark shade of the pine forests, — the sylvan
torrent rushing between overhanging cliffs to its fall, — all
are in antecedent mysterious communion with the inner
feelings and life of man.

On this communion rests the nobler portion of the
enjoyment which nature affords. Nowhere does she pene-
trate us more deeply with the feeling of her grandeur,
nowhere does she speak to us with a more powerful voice,
than in the tropical world, under the " Indian sky," as, in
the early middle ages, the climate of the torrid zone was
called. If, therefore, I venture again to occupy this
Assembly with a description of those regions, I do so in
the hope that the peculiar charm which belongs to them
will not be unfelt. The remembrance of a distant richly
endowed land, — the aspect of a free and vigorous vege-

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 209

tation, — refreshes and strengthens the mind ; in the same
manner as our spirits, when oppressed with the actual
present, love to escape awhile, and to delight themselves
with the earlier youthful age of mankind, and with the
manifestations of its simple grandeur.

Favouring winds and currents bear the voyager westward
across the peaceful Ocean arm, (l) which fills the wide
valley between the New Continent and western Africa.
Before the American shore rises from the liquid plain, he
hears the tumult of contending, mutually opposing, and
inter-crossing waves. The mariner unacquainted with the
region would surmise the vicinity of shoals, or a wonderful
outbreak of fresh springs in the middle of the ocean, (2)
like those in the neighbourhood of Cuba. On approaching
nearer to the granitic coast of Guiana, he becomes sensible
that he has entered the wide embouchure of a mighty river,
which issues forth like a shoreless lake and covers the
ocean around with fresh water. The green, and on the
shallows the milk-white, tint of the fresh water contrasts
with the indigo-blue colour of the sea, and marks with
sharp outlines the limits of the river waves.

The name Orinoco, given to the river by its first dis-
coverers, and which probably originated in some confusion
of language, is unknown in the interior of the country.
Nations in a rude state designate by proper geographical
names only such objects as can be confounded with each
other. The Orinoco, the Amazons, and the Magdalena
rivers, are called simply « The River," or " Tiie Great River,"
or " The Great Water /' whilst those who dwell on their

VOL. I. P

210 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

banks distinguish even the smallest streams by particular
names.

The current produced by the Orinoco, between the main-
land and the Island of Trinidad with its asphaltic lake, is
so strong, that ships with all sail set, and with a favourable
breeze, can with difficulty make way against it. This
deserted and dreaded part of the sea is called the Bay of
Sadness (Golfo Triste) ; the entrance forms the Dragon's
Mouth (Boca del Drago). Here detached cliffs rise like
towers above the foaming floods, and seem still to indicate
the ancient site of a rocky bulwark (3), which, before it was
broken by the force of the current, united the island of
Trinidad with the coast of Paria.

The aspect of this region first convinced the great dis-
coverer of the New World of the existence of an American
continent. Familiar with nature, he inferred that so immense
a body of fresh water could only be collected in a long
course, and " that the land which supplied it must be a
continent, not an island." As, according to Arrian, the
companions of Alexander, after crossing the snow-covered
Paropanisus, (4) on reaching the Indus imagined, from the
presence of crocodiles, that they recognised in that river a
branch of the Nile ; so Columbus, unaware of the- similarity
of physiognomy which characterises the various productions
of the climate of Palms, readily supposed this new continent
to be the eastern coast of the far-projecting continent of
Asia. The mild coolness of the evening air, the ethereal
purity of the starry firmament, the balsamic fragrance of the
flowers wafted to him by the land breeze, — all led him (as

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 211

Herrara tells us in the Decades) (5), to deem that he had
approached the garden of Eden, the sacred dwelling-place
of the first parents of the human race. The Orinoco
appeared to him to be one of the four rivers descending
from Paradise, to divide and water the earth newly decked
with vegetation. This poetic passage from the journal of
Columbus's voyage, or rather from a letter written from
Hayti, in October 1498, to Ferdinand and Isabella, has a
peculiar psychological interest. It teaches us anew that
the creative imagination of the poet exists in the Discoverer
as in every form of human greatness.

In considering the quantity of water which the Orinoco
bears to the Atlantic, the question arises — Which of the great
South American Rivers, — the Orinoco, the Amazons, or the
River Plate, — is the largest ? The question, however, thus
put is not a determinate one, the idea of size in this case
not being altogether definite. The Eiver Plate has the
widest embouchure, being 92 geographical miles across;
but, like the British rivers, its length is comparatively small.
Even at Buenos Ayres its depth is already so inconsiderable
as to impede navigation. The Amazons is the longest of
all rivers : its course from its origin in the Lake of Lauri-
cocha to its mouth is 2880 geographical miles. But its
breadth in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, near the
cataract of Rentaina, as measured by me at the foot of the
picturesque mountain of Patachuma, hardly equals that of
the Rhine at Mayence.

The Orinoco is narrower at its mouth than either the
River Plate or the Amazons ; and its length, according to

212 CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO.

positions astronomically determined by me, only amounts to
1120 geographical miles. But, on the other hand, far in
the interior of Guiana, 560 miles from its mouth, I still
found its breadth, when full, 16200 Parisian (17265 Eng.)
feet. The periodical swelling of the river annually raises
its level at this part of its course from 30 to 36 feet above
its lowest level. Sufficient materials for an accurate com-
parison of the enormous rivers which intersect the con-
tinent of South America are still wanting. For such a
comparison it would be needful to know in each case the
profile of the river-bed, and the velocity of the water, which
differs very greatly in different parts of the same stream.

If, in the Delta enclosed by its variously divided and still
unexplored arms, — in the regularity of its periodical rise
and fall, — and in the number and size of its croco-
diles,— the Orinoco shews points of resemblance to the
Nile, there is this further analogy between the two rivers,
that after, long rushing rapidly through many windings
between wood-fringed shores formed by granitic and syenitic
rocks and mountains, during the remainder of their course
they slowly roll their waters to the sea, between treeless
banks, over an almost horizontal bed. An arm of the
Nile (the Green Nile, Bahr7el-Azrek) flows from the cele-
brated mountain-lake near Gondar, in the Abyssinian Gojam
Alps, to Syene and Elephantis, through the mountains of
Shangalla and Sennaar. In a similar manner the Orinoco
rises on the southern declivity of the mountain chain which,
in the 4th and 5th parallel of North latitude, extends west-
ward from Prench Guiana towards the Andes of New

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 213

Granada. The sources of the Orinoco (6) have never been
visited by any European, or even by any natives who have
been in communication with Europeans.

In ascending the Upper Orinoco in the summer of 1800,
we passed the Mission of Esmeralda, and reached the mouths
of the Sodom oni and the Guapo. Here rises high above
the clouds the massive summit of the Yeonnamari or Duida,
a grand and picturesque mountain which presents to the
spectator one of the finest scenes of nature which the
tropical world has to offer. Its altitude, according to my
trigonometrical measurement, is 8278 (8823 Eng.) feet
above the level of the sea. The southern slope of the
mountain presents a treeless grassy surface, and the humid
evening air is filled far and wide with the fragrance of the
ripe ananas. The stalks of the pine apples, swelling with
rich juice, rise between the lowly herbs of the meadow,
and the golden fruit is seen shining at a distance from
under its leafy crown of bluish-green. Where mountain
springs or rivulets break forth from the turfy covering,
the scene is further adorned by groups of tall fan-palms,
whose foliage never feels the influence of a cool breeze.

On the east of the Duida mountain a dense thicket of
wild Cacao groves begins, and amidst these are found trees
of the celebrated Bertholletia excelsa, the most vigorous of
the productions of the tropical world (7). Here the Indians
collect the materials for their blow-pipes, colossal grass-
stalks having joints above 18 feet long from knot to knot. (8)
Some Franciscan monks have penetrated as far as the mouth
of the Chiguire, where the river is already so narrow that

214 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

the natives have thrown across it, near the waterfall of
the Guaharibes, a suspension bridge formed of the twining
stems of climbing plants. The Guaicas, a race of compara-
tively light complexion but of small stature, armed with
poisoned arrows, forbid any farther advance towards the east.

All, therefore, that has been put forward respecting the
lake origin of the Orinoco is fabulous (9) . "We seek in vain
in nature for the Laguna of El Dorado, which is still marked
in Arrowsmith's maps as an inland sea 80 geographical
miles in length. Has the little reedy lake of Amucu,
from which the Pirara (a branch of the Mahu) flows, given
rise to this fable ? But the swamp in which the lake of
Amucu is situated is four degrees of longitude to the east of
the district in which the sources of the Orinoco must be
sought.

It was an ancient custom of dogmatising geographers to
make all the larger rivers of the world originate in con-
siderable lakes. To the lake forming the supposed origin
of the Orinoco was transferred the site of the island of
Pumacena, a rock of micaceous slate, the glitter of which,
in the 16th century, played, in the fable of El Dorado,
a memorable, and to deceived humanity often a fatal
part. It is the belief of the natives, that the Magellanic
clouds of the southern hemisphere, and even the fine nebulae
in the constellation of the ship Argo, are a reflection
of the metallic brilliancy of the silver mountains of the
Parime.

The Orinoco is one of those rivers which, after many
windings, seem to return back towards the region in which

CATAKACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 215

they took their rise. After following a westerly and then a
northerly course, it runs again to the east, so that its mouth
is almost in the same meridian as its source. From the
Chiguire and the Gehetto as far as the Guaviare the
Orinoco flows to the west, as if it would carry its waters to
the Pacific. It is in this part of its course that it sends out
towards the south a remarkable arm, the Cassiquiare, but
little known in Europe, which unites with the Rio Negro,
(called by the natives the Guainia), and offers perhaps the
only example of a bifurcation forming in the very interior
of a continent a natural connection between two great rivers
and their basins.

The nature of the ground, and the junction of the
Guaviare and Atabapo with the Orinoco, cause the latter to
turn suddenly towards the north. In the absence of correct
geographical knowledge, the Guaviare flowing in from the
west was long regarded as the true origin of the Orinoco.
The doubts raised by an eminent geographer, M. Buache,
since 1797, as to the probability of a connection with the
Amazons, have I hope been entirely refuted by my expedi-
tion. In an uninterrupted navigation of 920 geographical
miles I passed through the singular network of rivers, from
the Rio Negro, by the Cassiquiare, into the Orinoco ; tra-
versing in this manner the interior of the Continent, from
the Brazilian boundary to the coast of Caraccas.

In the upper portion of the basin of the Orinoco and its
tributaries, between the 3rd and 4th degrees of north lati-
tude, nature has several times repeated the enigmatical
phenomenon of the so-called " black waters." The Atabapo.

216 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

whose banks are adorned with Carolinias and arborescent
Melastomas, and the Teini, Tuamini, and Guainia, are all
rivers of a coffee-brown colour. In the shade of the palm
groves this colour seems almost to pass into ink-black.
When placed in transparent vessels, the water appears of a
golden yellow. The image of the Southern Constellations
is reflected with wonderful clearness in these black streams.
"Where their waters flow gently, they afford to the observer,
when taking astronomical observations with reflecting instru-
ments, a most excellent artificial horizon. A cooler atmo-
sphere, less torment from stinging mosquitoes, greater
salubrity, and the absence of crocodiles (fish, however, are
also wanting), mark the region of these black rivers. They
probably owe their peculiar colour to a solution of carbu-
retted hydrogen, to the luxuriance of the tropical vegetation,
and to the quantity of plants and herbs on the ground over
which they flow. On the western declivity of the Chimbo-
razo, towards the coast of the Pacific, I remarked that the
flooded waters of the Bio de Guayaquil gradually assumed a
golden yellow or almost coffee-brown colour, when covering
the meadows for some weeks.

In the vicinity of the mouths of the Guaviare and Atabapo
grows the Piriguao, (10) one of the noblest of palm trees,
whose smooth and polished trunk, between 60 and 70 feet
high, is adorned with a delicate flag-like foliage curled at the
margins. I know no palm which bears such large and
beautifully coloured fruits. They resemble peaches, and are
tinged with yellow mingled with a roseate crimson. Seventy
or eighty of them form enormous pendulous bunches, of

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 217

which each tree annually ripens three. This fine tree might
be called the peach palm. The fleshy fruits are from the
luxuriance of vegetation most often devoid of seeds, and
offer to the natives a nutritious farinaceous food which, like
plantains and potatoes, can be prepared in a variety of ways.
Hitherto, or as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, the
Orinoco flows along the southern declivity of the Sierra
de Parime; and from its southern bank the vast forest-
covered plain of the Amazons River stretches far beyond
the equator, even to the 15th degree of south latitude.
When the Orinoco turns suddenly to the north near San
Fernando de Atabapo, it breaks through a part of the moun-
tain chain along the base of which it had previously flowed ;
and this is the site of the great waterfalls of Atures and May-
pures. The river bed is here everywhere hemmed in by
colossal masses of rock, and divided as it were into separate
reservoirs by natural dikes.

.In front of the entrance of the Meta there stands in the
middle of a mighty whirlpool an isolated cliff, to which the
natives have given the very appropriate name of the " rock
of patience ;" because when the waters are low it sometimes
costs those who are ascending the river two days to pass it.
Here the Orinoco, eating deep into the land, forms pictu-
resque rocky bays. Opposite to the Indian mission of Cari-
chana the traveller is surprised by the singular prospect which
presents itself to his view. His eye is involuntarily riveted
on an abrupt granitic rock, el Mogote de Cocuyaa, a cube
with vertically precipitous sides, above 200 feet high and
bearing on its upper surface a forest of trees of rich and varied

£18 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

foliage. Resembling a Cyclopean monument in its simple
grandeur, this mass of rock rises high above the tops of the
surrounding palms, its sharp outlines appearing in strong
relief against the deep azure of the sky, and its summit up-
lifting high in air a forest above the forest.

In descending the Orinoco from this point, still within -the
range of the Carichana mission, we arrive at the part of the
river where the stream has forced for itself a way through
the narrow pass of Baraguan. Here we recognise every-
where traces of chaotic devastation. To the north, (towards
Uruana and Encaramada), masses of granite of extraordina-
rily notched and serrated outline and grotesque aspect shine
with dazzling whiteness high above the thickets from amidst
which they rise.

It is in this region, after receiving the Apure, that the
Orinoco leaves the granitic chain of mountains and flows
eastward to the Atlantic, dividing the impenetrable forests of
Guiana from the grassy plains on which ',he vault of heaven
seems everywhere to rest as on the horizon of the ocean.
Thus the elevated cluster of the Parime mountains, which
occupies the entire space between the sources of the Jao and
the Caura, is surrounded on three sides, to the South, to the
West, and to the North, by the Orinoco. Below Carichana
the course of the river is uninterrupted by rocks or rapids to
its mouth, excepting at the whirlpool of the Boca del Infierno
(Hell's mouth) near Muitaco, where, however, the rocks which
occasion the rapid do not extend across the entire bed of
the river as at Atures and Maypures. In these lower parts of
the river in the vicinity of the sea, the only danger feared by

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 219

the boatmen is that of encountering the great natural rafts,
consisting of trees torn from the banks by the swelling of
the river, against which canoes are often wrecked during the
night. These rafts, covered like meadows with flowering
water plants, remind the spectator of the floating gardens of
the Mexican lakes.

After this rapid review of the course of the Orinoco, and
of its general relations to the surrounding country, I pass
to the description of the Palls of Maypures and Atures.

Between the sources of the rivers Sipapo and Yentuari a
granite ridge projects from the elevated mountain group of
Cunavami, and advances far to the west towards the moun-
tains of Uniama. Four streams, which may be said to mark
the limits of the cataracts of Maypures, descend from this
ridge ; two, the Sipapo and the Sanariapo, on the eastern side
of the Orinoco ; and two, the Cameji and the Toparo, on its
western side. Near the Missionary village of Maypures the
mountains retire and form a wide bay open to the south-west.

The foaming stream flows at the present time at the foot
of the eastern mountain declivity, and far to the west we
recognise the ancient bank now forsaken by the water. A
grass-covered plain, only about thirty feet above the present
highest level of the river, extends between the two chains of
hills. The Jesuits have built upon it a small church formed
of the trunks of palm trees.

The geological aspect of the district, the shapes of the
rocks of Keri and Oco, which have so much the character
of islands, the water- worn hollows in the first named of these
rocks, situated at exactly the same height as the cavities in
the opposite island of Uivitari, all testify that the Orinoco

220 CATAllACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

once filled the whole of this now dry gulf or bay. Probably
the waters formed a wide lake as long as the northern dike
was able to withstand their pressure. "When it gave way,
the prairie now inhabited by the Guareke Indians must
have been the first part which appeared above the waters ;
which may subsequently, perhaps, have long continued to
surround the rocks of Keri and Oco, which rising like moun-
tain fortresses from .the ancient bed of the river, present a
picturesque aspect. As the waters gradually diminished
they withdrew altogether to the foot of the eastern hills,
where the river now flows.

This conjecture is confirmed by several circumstances.
The Orinoco, like the Nile near Philse and Syene, has the
property of imparting a black colour to the reddish white
masses of granite which it has bathed for thousands of years.
As far as the waters reach, one may remark on the rocky
shore the leaden-coloured coating described in page 189 : its
presence, and the hollows before mentioned, mark the ancient
height of the waters of the Orinoco.

In the rock of Keri, in the islands of the Cataracts, in the
gneiss hills of Cumadaminari above the island of Tomo, and
lastly at the mouth of the Jao, we trace these black-coloured
hollows at elevations of 150 to 180 (160 to 192 English)
feet above the present height of the river. Their existence
teaches us a fact of which we may also observe indications
in the river beds of Europe ; viz. that the streams whose
magnitude now excites our astonishment are only the feeble
remains of the immense masses of water belonging to an
earlier age of the world.

These simple remarks and inferences have not escaped

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 221

even the rude natives of Guiana. The Indians everywhere
called our attention to the traces of the former height/of the
waters. There is in a grassy plain near Uruana an isolated
granite rock, on which, according' to the report of trust-
worthy witnesses, there are at a height of more than eighty
feet drawings of the sun and moon, and of many animals,
particularly crocodiles and boas, engraven or arranged almost
in rows or lines. Without artificial aid it would now be
impossible to ascend this perpendicular precipice, which de-
serves to be carefully examined by future travellers. The
hieroglyphical rock engravings on the mountains of Uruana
and Encaramada are equally remarkable in respect to
situation.

If one asks the natives how these figures can have been
cut in the rocks, they answer that it was done when the
waters were so high that their fathers' boats were only a
little lower than the drawings. Those rude memorials of
human art would in such case have belonged to the same
age as a state of the waters implying a distribution of land
and water very different from that which now prevails, and
belonging to an earlier condition of the earth's surface ;
which must not, however, be confounded with that in which
the earlier vegetation which adorned our planet, the gigantic
bodies of extinct land animals, and the oceanic creatures of a
more chaotic state, became entombed in the indurating crust
of globe.

At the northernmost extremity of the cataracts, attention
is excited by what are called the natural drawings or pictures
of the Sun and Moon. The rock Keri, to which I have

222 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

several times referred, has received its name from a white
spot which is conspicuous from a great distance, and in
which the Indians have thought they recognised a remark-
able similarity to the disk of the full moon. I was not
myself able to climb the steep precipice, but the white mark
in question is probably a large knot of quartz formed by a
cluster of veins in the greyish-black granite-
Opposite to the Keri rock, on the twin mountain of the
island of Uivitari, which has a basaltic appearance, the
Indians shew with mysterious admiration a similar disk
which they venerate as the image of the Sun, Camosi.
Perhaps the geographical position of the two rocks may
have contributed to these denominations, as the Keri (or
Moon Rock) is turned to the West, and the Camosi to the
East. Some etymologists have thought they recognised in
the American word Camosi a similarity to Camosh, the name
of the Sun in one of the Phoenician dialects, and to Apollo
Chomeus, or Beelphegor and Ammon.

Unlike the grander falls of Niagara (which are 140
French or 150 English feet high) the " Cataracts of May-
pures" are not formed by the single precipitous descent of
a vast mass of waters, nor are they " narrows" or passes
through which the river rushes with accelerated velocity, as
in the Pongo of Manseriche in the Eiver of the Amazons.
The Cataracts of Maypures consist of a countless number
of little cascades succeeding each other like steps. The
" Raudal" (the name given by the Spaniards to this species
of cataract) is formed by numerous islands and rocks which
so restrict the bed of the river, that out of a breadth of 8000

CATAKACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 223

(8526 E.) feet there often only remains an open channel of
twenty feet in width. The eastern side is now much more
inaccessible and dangerous than the western.

At the confluence of the Cameji with the Orinoco, goods
are unladen in order that the empty canoe, or, as it is here
called, the Piragua, may be conveyed by Indians well ac-
quainted with the Eaudal to the mouth of the Toparo, where
the danger is considered to be past. Where the separate
rocks or steps (each of which is designated by a particular
name) are not much above two or three feet high, the
natives, if descending the stream, venture, remaining them-
selves in the canoe, to let it go down the falls : if they are
ascending the stream they leave the boat, swim forward,
and when after many unsuccessful attempts they have suc-
ceeded in casting a rope round the points of rock which
rise above the broken water, they draw up their vessel,
which is often either overset or entirely filled with water
in the course of these laborious proceedings.

Sometimes, and it is the only case which gives the natives
any uneasiness, the canoe is dashed in pieces against the
rocks; the men have then to disengage themselves with
bleeding bodies from the wreck and from the whirling force
of the torrent, and to gain the shore by swimming. Where
the rocky steps are very high and extend across the entire
bed of the river, the light boat is brought to land and drawn
along the bank by moans of branches of trees placed under
it as rollers.

The most celebrated and difficult steps, those of Purima-
nmi and Manimi, are between nine and ten feet high. I

224* CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

found with astonishment by barometric measurements, (geo-
desical levelling being out of the question from the inacces-
sibility of the locality, its highly insalubrious atmosphere, and
the swarms of mosquitoes which fill the air), that the whole
fall of the Eaudal from the mouth of the Cameji to that
of- the Toparo hardly amounts to 28 or 30 feet (30 or 32
English) . I say, " I found with astonishment •" for this
shews that the dreadful noise and wild dashing and foam-
ing of the river are the results of the narrowing of its bed
by countless rocks and islands, and of the counter currents
produced by the form and situation of the masses of rock.
The best ocular demonstration of the small height of the
whole fall is obtained by descending from the village of
Maypures to the bed of the river by the rock of Manimi.

From this point a wonderful prospect is enjoyed. A
foaming surface of four miles in length presents itself at
once to the eye : iron-black masses of rock resembling ruins
and battlemented towers rise frowning from the waters.
Rocks and islands are adorned with the luxuriant vegetation
of the tropical forest; a perpetual mist hovers over the
waters, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce through
the cloud of spray and vapour. When the rays of the
glowing evening sun are refracted in these humid exhala-
tions a magic optical effect begins. Coloured bows shine,
vanish, and reappear ; and the ethereal image is swayed to
and fro by the breath of the sportive breeze. During the
long rainy season the streaming waters bring down islands
of vegetable mould, and thus the naked rocks are studded
with bright flower-beds adorned with Melastomas and

CATARACTS OF THE OllINOCO. 225

Droseras. and with small silver-leaved mimosas aiid ferns.
These spots recal to the recollection of the European those
blocks of granite decked with flowers which rise solitary
amidst the glaciers of Savoy, and are called by the dwellers
in the Alps "Jardins," or "Courtils."

In the blue distance the eye rests on the mountain chain
of Cunavami, a long extended ridge which terminates abruptly
in a truncated cone. We saw the latter, (Calitamini is its
Indian name), glowing at sunset as if in roseate flames.
This appearance returns daily : no one has ever been near
the mountain to detect the precise cause of this brightness,
which may perhaps proceed from a reflecting surface pro-
duced by the decomposition of talc or mica slate.

During the five days which we passed in the neighbour-
hood of the cataracts, it was striking to hear the thunder of
the rushing torrents sound three times louder by night than
by day. In all European waterfalls the same phenomenon
is remarked. What can be its cause in a wilderness where
there is nothing to interrupt the repose of nature ? Perhaps
the currents of heated ascending air by causing irregular
density in the elastic medium impede the propagation of
sound during the day, by the disturbance they may occasion
in the waves of sound ; whereas during the nocturnal cooling
of the earth's surface the upward currents cease.

The Indians called our attention to ancient tracks of
wheels. They speak with admiration of the horned animals,
(oxen), which in the times of the Jesuit missions used to
draw the canoes on wheeled supports, along the left bank of
the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the

VOL. I. Q,

226 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

Toparo. The lading was not then removed from the boats,
nor were the latter worn and injured as they now are by
being constantly stranded upon the rocks and dragged over
their rough surface.

The topographical plan of the district sketched by me
shews the facilities which the nature of the ground offers
for the opening of a canal from the Cameji to the Toparo,
which would form a navigable side arm to the river, the
dangerous portion of which would be thus avoided. I pro-
posed its execution to the Governor-General of Venezuela.

The Eaudal of Atures closely resembles that of Maypures ;
like it, it is a cluster of islands between which the river
forces its way for ten or twelve thousand yards ; a forest of
palms rising from the midst of the foaming waters. The
most celebrated " Steps" of this Eaudal are situated between
the islands of Avaguri and Javariveni, between Suripamana
and Uirapuri.

When M. Bonpland and I returned from the banks of
the Bio Negro, we ventured to pass the latter or lower half of
the Eaudal of Atures with the loaded canoe, often leaving it
for the rocky dikes which connect one island with another.
Sometimes the waters rush over these dikes, and some-
times they fall with a hollow thundering sound into cavities,
and flowing for a time through subterranean channels,
leave large pieces of the bed of the river dry. Here the
golden Pipra rupicola makes its nest; it is one of the
most beautiful of tropical birds, with a double . moveable
crest of feathers, and is as pugnacious as the East Indian
domestic cock.

CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO. 227

In the Raudal of Canucaii the rocky dike or weir con-
sists of piled-up granite spheres. We crept into the inte-
rior of a grotto the damp walls of which were covered with
confervse and shining Byssus, and where the river rushed
high above our heads with deafening noise.

We had accidentally more time than we desired for the
enjoyment of this grand scene of nature. The Indians had
left us in the middle of the cataract, proposing to take the
canoe round a long narrow island below which we were to
re-embark. We waited an hour and a half under a heavy
tempestuous rain ; night was coming on, and we sought in
vain for shelter between the masses of granite. The little
monkeys, which we had carried with us for months in
wicker cages, by their mournful cries attracted crocodiles
whose size and leaden-grey colour shewed their great age. I
should not here notice an occurrence so usual in the Orinoco,
if the Indians had not assured us that no crocodiles were
ever seen in the cataracts; and in dependence on this as-
surance we had even ventured repeatedly to bathe in this
part of the river. Meanwhile our anxiety lest we might be
forced to pass the long tropical night in the middle of the
Raudal, wet through and deafened by the thundering noise
of the falling waters, increased every moment ; until at last
the Indians reappeared with our canoe. Prom the low
state of the waters they had found the steps by which they
had intended to let themselves down inaccessible, and had
been forced to seek among the labyrinth of channels for a
more practicable passage.

Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on

228 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

the right bank of the river, is the cave of Ataruipe, which
is widely celebrated among the Indians. The grand and
melancholy character of the scenery around fits it for the
burying-place of a deceased nation. We climbed with diffi-
culty, and not without danger of falling to a great depth
below, a steep and perfectly bare granite precipice. It
would be hardly possible to keep one's footing on the
smooth surface, if it were not for large crystals of feldspar,
which, resisting " weathering," project as much as an inch
from the face of the rock.

On reaching the summit the traveller beholds a wide,
diversified, and striking prospect. From the foaming river-
bed rise wood-crowned hills, while beyond the western shore
of the Orinoco the eye rests on the boundless grassy plain of
the Meta, uninterrupted save where at one part of the
horizon the Mountain of Uniama rises like a threatening
cloud. Such is the distance ; the nearer prospect is deso-
late, and closely hemmed in by high and barren rocks. All
is motionless save where the vulture or the hoarse goat-
sucker hover solitarily in mid-air, or, as they wing their
flight through the deep-sunk ravine, their silent shadows
are seen gliding along the face of the bare rocky precipice
until they vanish from the eye.

This precipitous valley is bounded by mountains on whose
rounded summits are enormous detached granite spheres of
more than 40 to 50 feet diameter : they appear to touch the
base on which they rest only in a single point, as if the
slightest movement, such as that of a faint earthquake shock,
must cause them to roll down.

CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 229

The farther part of the valley is densely wooded, and it is
in this shady portion that the cave of Ataruipe is situated.
It is not properly speaking a cave, but rather a vaulted roof
formed by a far over-hanging cliff, the cavity having appa-
rently been formed by the waters when at their ancient level.
This place is the vault or cemetery of an extinct nation. (u)
"We counted about 600 well-preserved skeletons placed in
as many baskets woven from the stalks of palm leaves.
These baskets, which the Indians call " umpires/' are shaped
like square sacks, differing in size according to the age of
the deceased. Even new-born children had each its own
mapire. The skeletons are so perfect that not a bone or a
joint is wanting.

The bones had been prepared in three different ways;
some bleached, some coloured red with onoto, the pigment
of the Bixa Orellana; and some like mummies closely
enveloped in sweet-smelling resin and plantain leaves.

The Indians assured us that the custom had been to bury
the fresh corpses for some months in damp earth, which
gradually consumed the flesh ; they were then dug up, and
any remaining flesh scraped away with sharp stones. This
the Indians said was still the practice of several tribes in
Guiana. Besides the mapires or baskets we found urns of
half burnt clay which appeared to contain the bones of
entire families. The larger of these urns were about three
feet high and nearly six feet long, of a pleasing oval form
and greenish colour, having handles shaped like snakes arid
crocodiles, and meandering or labyrinthine ornaments round
the upper margin. These ornaments are quite similar to

230 CATARACTS 0¥ THE ORINOCO.

those which cover the walls of the Mexican Palace at
Mitla. They are found in all countries and climates, and
in the most different stages of human cultivation, — among
the Greeks and Romans, as well as on the shields of the na-
tives of Tahiti and other islands of the South Sea, — wherever
the eye is gratified by the rhythmical recurrence of regular
forms. These similarities, as I have elsewhere remarked in
more detail, are rather to be ascribed to psychological
causes, or to such as belong inherently to our mental con-
stitution, than to be viewed as evidences of kindred descent
or ancient intercourse between different nations.

Our interpreters could give us no certain information as
to the age of these vessels ; that of the skeletons appeared
for the most part not to exceed a century. It is reported
among the Guareca Indians, that the brave Atures, being
pressed upon by cannibal Caribs, withdrew to the rocks of
the Cataracts ; a melancholy refuge and dwelling-place, in
which the distressed tribe finally perished, and with them
their language. In the most inaccessible parts of the
Raudal there are cavities and recesses which have served like
the cave of Ataruipe as burying-places. It is even probable
that the last family of the Atures may not have been long
deceased, for (a singular fact,) there is still in Maypures an
old parrot of whom the natives affirm that he is not under-
stood because he speaks the Ature language'.

We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to
the great displeasure of our Indian guides, several skulls and
the entire skeleton of a man. One of these skulls has been
figured by Blumenbach in his excellent craniological work,

CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO. 231

but the skeleton (together with a large part of our natural
history collections, especially the entomological) was lost
in a shipwreck on the coast of Africa, in which our friend
and former travelling companion, the young Franciscan monk
Juan Gonzalez, perished.

As if with a presentiment of this painful loss, we turned
our steps in. a thoughtful and melancholy mood from this
burying-place of a race deceased. It was one of those clear
and cool nights so frequent in the tropics. The moon,
encircled with coloured rings, stood high in the zenith illu-
minating the margin of the mist which lay with well-defined
cloud-like outlines on the surface of the foaming river.
Countless insects poured their red phosphoric light on the
herb-covered ground, which glowed with living fire as if the
starry canopy of heaven had sunk down upon the turf.
Climbing Bignonias, fragrant Vanillas, and yellow-flowering
Bauisterias, adorned the entrance of the cave; and the
summits of the palms rnstled above the graves.

Thus perish the generations of men ! Thus do the name
and the traces of nations fade and disappear ! Yet when each
blossom of man's intellect withers, — when in the storms of
lime the memorials of his art moulder and decay, — an ever
new life springs forth from the bosom of the earth ; maternal
Nature unfolds unceasingly her germs, her flowers, and her
fruits ; regardless though man with his passions and his
crimes treads under foot her ripening harvest.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 233

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

(*) p. 209. — "Across the peaceful ocean arm, which fills
the wide valley between tlie American shore and
Western Africa.'3

The Atlantic Ocean, from the 23d degree of South to the
70th degree of North latitude, has the form of an excavated
longitudinal valley, in which the salient and re-entering angles
are opposite to each other. I first developed this idea in
my "Essai d'uii Tableau geologique de FAmerique meri-
dionale," printed in the Journal de Physique, T. liii. p. 61.
(Geognostische Skizze von Siidamerika, in Gilbert's Annalen
der Physik, Bd. xvi. 1804, S. 394-449.) From the Canaries,
and especially from the 21st degree of North latitude and the
23d degree of West longitude, to the North-East coast of
South America, the surface of the sea is usually so calm,
ani the waves so gentle, that an open boat might navigate
in safety.

(2) p. 209. — " A wonderful, outbreak of fresh springs in
the middle of the oczan"

On the southern coast of the island of Cuba, south-west of
the Port of Batabano in the gulf of Xagua, a few miles
from the coast, springs of fresh water gush from the bed of
the ocean probably under the influence of hydrostatic pres-

234 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

sure, and rise through the midst of the salt water. They
issue forth with such force that boats are cautious in
approaching this locality, which has an ill repute on
account of the high cross sea thus caused. Trading
vessels sailing along the coast and not disposed to land,
sometimes visit these springs to take in a supply of fresh
water, which is thus obtained in the open sea. The greater
the depth from which the water is taken, the fresher it is
found to be. The " river cow/' Trichecus manati, which
does not remain habitually in salt water, is often killed
here. This remarkable phenomenon of fresh springs
issuing from the sea has been most carefully examined
by a friend of mine, Don Francisco Lemaur, who made a
trigonometrical survey of the Bay of Xagua. I have been
farther to the South in the group of islands called the
Jardines del Eey, (the King's Gardens), making astronomical
observations for latitude and longitude ; but I have never
been at Xagua itself.

(3) p. 210. — " The ancient site of a rocky bulwark."

Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation exerted
itself in every direction, propounds in his letters to the Spa-
nish monarchs a geognostical hypothesis respecting the forms
of the larger Antilles. Having his mind deeply impressed
with the strength of the East and West Equinoctial current,
he ascribes to it the breaking up of the group of the smaller
West Indian islands, and the singularly lengthened configu-
ration of the southern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and
Jamaica, which all follow almost exactly the direction of

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 235

parallels of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May
1498 to the end of November 1500), in which, from the Boca
del Drago to the Island of Margarita, and afterwards from
that island to Haiti, he felt the whole force of the Equinoctial
current, "that movement of the waters which is in accordance
or conformity with the movement of the heavens — movimiento
de los cielos," he says expressly that the Island of Trini-
dad had been torn from the mainland by the violence of the
current. He alludes to a chart which he sends to the
monarchs, — a " pintura de la tierra" by himself, which is
often referred to in the celebrated lawsuit against Don Diego
Colon respecting the rights of the Admiral. "Es la carta
de marear y figura que hizo el Almirante senalando los
rumbos y vientos por los quales vino a Paria, que dicen parte
del Asia", (Navarrete Yiages y Descubrimientos que hicieron
por mar los Espanoles, T. i. p. 253 and 260 ; T. iii. p. 539
and 587.)

(4) p. 210. — " Over the snow-covered Paropanisus."

Diodorus's descriptions of the Paropanisus (Diodor. Sicul.
lib. xvii. p. 553, Rhodom.) might almost pass for a descrip-
tion of the Andes of Peru. The Army passed through in-
habited places where snow fell daily !

(5) p. 211.— "Herrara in the Decades."

Historia general de las Indias occidentals, Dec. i. lib iii.
cap. 12 (ed. 1601, p. 106] ; Juan Bautista Muiioz, Historia
del Nuevo Mundo, lib. vi. c. 31, p. 301 ; Humboldt, Examen
Grit. T. iii p. 111.

236 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

(6) p. 213. — " The Sources of the Orinoco have never
been visited by any European''

Thus I wrote respecting these sources iii the year 1807, in
the first edition of the "Ansichten der Natur," and I have to
repeat the same statement after an interval of 41 years. The
travels of the brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk, so
important for all departments of natural knowledge and
geography, have afforded us thorough investigations of other
and more interesting facts ; but the problem of the situation
of the sources of the Orinoco has been only approximately
solved by Sir Robert Schomburgk. It was from the West that
M. Bonpland and myself advanced as far as Esmeralda,
or the confluence of the Orinoco and the Guapo ; and I was
able to describe with certainty, by the aid of well-assured in-
formation, the upper course of the Orinoco to above the
mouth of the Gehette, and to the small Waterfall (Raudal) de
los Guaharibos. It was from the East that Robert Schom-
burgk, advancing from the mountains of the Majonkong In-
dians, (the altitude of the inhabited portions of which he
estimated by the boiling point of water at 3300 F., or 3517 E.
feet), came to the Orinoco by the Padamo River, which the
Majonkongs and Guinaus (Guaynas ?) call Paramu (Reisen
in Guiana, ] 841, S. 448). In my Atlas I had estimated the
position of the confluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco at
N. lat. 3° 12', and W. long. 65° 46' : Robert Schomburgk
found it by direct observation, lat. 2° 53', long. 65° 48'. The
leading object of this traveller's arduous journey was not the
pursuit of natural history, but the solution of the prize ques-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 237

tion proposed by the Royal Geographical Society of London
in November 1834,, — viz. the connection of the coast of Bri-
tish Guiauawith the easternmost pointwhich I had reached on
the Upper Orinoco. After many difficulties and much suffer-
ing, the desired objectwas completely attained. Robert Schom-
burgk arrived with his instruments on the 22d of February,
1839, at Esmeralda. His determinations of the latitude and
longitude of the place agreed more closely with mine than
I had expected would be the case (S. xviii. and 471). Here
let us allow the observer to speak for himself: — "I want
words to describe the feelings which overpowered me as I
sprang to shore. My aim was attained ; my observations,
began on the coast of Guiana, were brought into connection
with those of Humboldt at Esmeralda : I frankly own, that
in the course of this enterprise, at a time when almost all my
physical powers had well nigh deserted me, and when I was
surrounded by dangers and difficulties of no common nature,
it was only by the recognition which I hoped for from him,
that I had been encouraged to press onward with unalterable
determination towards the goal which 1 had now reached. The
emaciated figures of my Indians and faithful guides told more
plainly than any words could do, what difficulties we had had
to surmount, and had surmounted/' After expressions so
kind towards myself, I must be permitted to subjoin the
following passage, extracted from my Preface to the German
Edition of Eobert Schomburgk's Account of his Travels, pub-
lished in 1841.

" Immediately after my return from Mexico, I notified

238 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

the direction and the routes which should be followed
to explore the unknown portion of the South American
Continent between the sources of the Orinoco, the moun-
tain chain of Pacaraima, and the sea-shore near Esse-
quibo. These wishes, which I expressed so strongly in my
Relation Historique, have at last, after the lapse of almost
half a century, been for the greater part fulfilled. Besides
the joy of having lived to see so important an extension of
our geographical knowledge, I have had that of seeing it at-
tained by means of a courageous and well-conducted enter-
prise, requiring the most devoted perseverance, executed by
a young man with whom I feel united by the double bond of
similarity of pursuits and efforts, and of our common country.
Motives such as these have alone been sufficient to overcome
the distaste which I entertain, perhaps without reason, to in-
troductory prefaces by another hand than that of the author
of the work. But in this case I could not consent to forego
the opportunity of expressing, thus publicly, my heartfelt
esteem for the accomplished traveller who, in pursuit of an
object deriving all its interest from the mind, — namely, in the
self-imposed task of penetrating from East to West, from the
Valley of the Essequibo to Esmeralda, — succeeded, after five
years of efforts and of sufferings (which I can in part appre-
ciate from my own experience), in reaching the goal which
he had proposed to himself. Courage for the momentary
execution of a hazardous action is more easily met with, and
implies less of inward strength, than does the resolution to
endure patiently long- continued physical sufferings, incurred

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 239

in the pursuit of some deeply-felt mental interest, and still
to determine to go forward, undismayed by the certainty of
having to retrace the same painful route, and to support the
same privations in returning with enfeebled powers. Se-
renity of mind, almost the first requisite for an undertaking
in inhospitable regions, passionate love for some class of
scientific labour, (be it in natural history, astronomy, hypso-
metrics, magnetism, or aught else,) and a pure feeling for
the enjoyment which nature in her freedom is ready to im-
part, are elements which, when they meet together in an
individual, ensure the attainment of valuable results from a
great and important journey."

In discussing the question respecting the sources of the
Orinoco, I will begin with the conjectures which I had myself
formed on the subject. The dangerous route travelled in
1739 by the surgeon Nicolas Hortsmann, of Hildesheim -} in
1775 by the Spaniard .Don Antonio Santos, and his friend
Nicolas Rodriguez j in 1793 by the Lieutenant-Colonel of
the 1st Regiment of the Line of Para, Don Francisco Jose
Rodriguez Barata ; and (according to manuscript papers, for
which I am indebted to the former Portuguese Ambassador
in Paris, Chevalier de Brito) by several English and Dutch
settlers, who in 1811 went from Surinam to Para by the
Portage of the Rupunuri and by the Bio Branco ; — divides the
terra incognita of the Parirne into two unequal portions, and
serves to limit the situation of a very important point in the
geography of those regions — viz. the sources of the Orinoco,
which it is no longer possible to remove to an uncertain dis-
ance to the East, without interfering thereby with what we

240 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

know of the course of the Eio Branco, which flows from
north to south through the basin of the Upper Orinoco ;
while that river itself, in this part of its course, pursues
for the most part an East and West direction. Prom poli-
tical reasons, the Brazilians, since the beginning of the present
century, have testified a lively interest in the extensive plains
east of the Rio Branco. See the memoir which I drew up at
the request of the Portuguese court in 181 7," sur la fixation
des limites des Guyanes Prai^aise et Portuguaise" (Schoell,
Archives historiques et politiques, ou Eecueil de Pieces
officielles, Memoires, &c. T. i. 1818, p. 48-58). Viewing
the position of Santa Eosa on the Uraricapara, the course
of which appears to have been determined with tolerable
accuracy by Portuguese engineers, the sources of the Orinoco
cannot be looked for east of the meridian of 65J° from
Paris, (63°.8' W. long, from Greenwich). This being the
eastern limit beyond which they cannot be placed, and con-
sidering the state of the river at the Eaudal de los Guaha-
ribos (above Carlo Chiguire, in the country of the surpris-
ingly fair-skinned Guaycas Indians, and 52' East of the great
Cerro Duida), it appears to me probable that the upper part
of the Orinoco does not really extend, at the utmost, beyond
the meridian of 66£° from Paris (64°.08' W. from Green-
wich.) This point is according to my combinations 4°. 12
West of the little lake of Amucu, which was reached by Sir
Eobert Schomburgk.

I next subjoin the conjectures of that gentleman, having
given the earlier ones formed by myself. According to his
view, the course of the upper Orinoco to the east of Esme-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 241

ralda is directed from South-east to North-west ; my estima-
tions of latitude for the mouths of the Padamo and the
Gehette appearing to be respectively 1 9 and 36' too small.
Eobert Schomburgk supposes the sources of the Orinoco to
be in lat. 2°.30' (S. 460) ; and the fine "Map of Guayana,
to illustrate the route of R. H. Schomburgk/' which accom-
panies the splendid English work entitled " Yiews in the
Interior of Guiana," places the sources of the Orinoco in
67°.18' (W. from Paris), i. e. 1°.6' west of Esmeralda, and
only 48' of longitude nearer to the Atlantic than I had
thought admissible. Prom astronomical combinations
Schomburgk has placed the mountain of Maravaca, which
is upwards of nine thousand feet high, in lat. 3°. 41/ and
long. 65°.38/ Near the mouth of the Padamo or Paramu
the Orinoco was scarcely three hundred yards wide ; and
more to the west, where it spreads to a breadth of from four to
six hundred yards, it was so shallow and so full of sand-
banks that the Expedition were obliged to dig channels, the
river bed being only fifteen inches deep. Fresh water
Dolphins were still to be seen everywhere in large numbers ;
a phenomenon which the zoologists of the 18th century
would not have been prepared to expect in the Orinoco and
the Ganges.

(7) p. 213. — ee The most vigorous of the productions
of the tropical world!'

The Bertholletia excelsa ( Juvia), of the family of Myrtacese
(and placed in Richard Schomburgk's proposed division of
Lecythidese), was first described by Bonpland and myself in

VOL I. R

242 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

the "Plantes equinoxiales," T. i. 1808, p. 122, tab. 36.
This gigantic and magnificent tree offers, in the perfect for-
mation of its cocoa-like, round, thick, woody fruit enclosing
the three-cornered and also woody seed-vessels, the most
remarkable example of high organic development. The
Bertholietia grows in the forests of the Upper Orinoco
between the Padamo and the Ocamu, near the mountain of
Mapaya, and also between the rivers Amaguaca and Gehette.
(Relation historique, T. ii. p. 474, 496, 558-562.)

(8) p. 213. — "Grass stalks having joints above eighteen
feet long from knot to knot."

Robert Schomburgk, when visiting the small mountainous
country of the Majonkongs, on his way to Esmeralda, was
so fortunate as to determine the species of Arundinaria
which furnishes the material for the blowpipes or tubes
through which the Indians discharge their arrows. He
says of this plant : " It grows in large tufts like the Bam-
busa ; the first joint rises without a knot to a height of
from 16 to 17 feet before it begins to put forth leaves.
The entire height of the Arundinaria, as it grows at the foot
of the great mountain of Maravaca, is from 30 to 40 feet,
with a thickness of scarcely half an inch diameter. The top
is always inclined. This kind of grass is peculiar to the
sandstone mountains between the Ventuari, the Paramu
(Padamo), and the Mavaca. The Indian name is Curata,
and hence, from the excellence of these far-famed blow tubes
of great length, the Majonkongs and Guinaus of these

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 243

districts have been given the names of the Curata nation/'
(Eeiseu in Guiana und am Orinoco, S. 451.)

(9j p. 214. — " Fabulous lake — origin of the Orinoco"

The lakes of these regions (some of which have had their
real size much exaggerated by theoretical geographers, while
the existence of others is purely imaginary), may be divided
into two groups. The first of • these groups comprises the
lakes, whether real or imaginary, placed between Esmeralda
(the easternmost mission on the upper Orinoco), and the Eio
Branco; and the second those assumed to exist in the
district between the Eio Branco and French, Dutch, and
British Guiana. This general view, of which travellers
should never lose sight, shews that the question of whether
there is yet a Lake Parime east of the Eio Branco,
other than the Lake Arnucu, seen by Hortsmann, Santos,
Colonel Barata, and Schomburgk, has nothing whatever to
do with the problem of the sources of the Orinoco. As the
name of my friend the former Director of the Hydrographic
Office at Madrid, Don Felipe Bauza, is deservedly of great
weight in geography, the impartiality which ought to preside
over every scientific investigation makes me feel it a duty to
recall that this learned man was inclined to the view, that
there must be lakes west of the Eio Branco and not far
from the sources of the Orinoco. He wrote to me from
London, a short time before his death : " 1 wish you were
here, that I might converse with you on the subject of the
geography of the upper Orinoco, which has occupied you

244 C.iTARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

so much. I have been so fortunate as to rescue from entire
destruction the papers of the General of Marine, Don Jose
Solano, father of the Solano who perished in so melancholy
a manner at Cadiz. These documents relate to the boun-
dary division between the Spaniards and the Portuguese,
with which the elder Solano had been charged, in conjunc-
tion with Chef d'Escadron Yturriaga and Don Yicente Doz,
since 1754. In all these plans and sketches I see a Laguna
Parime, represented sometimes as the source of the Orinoco,
and sometimes quite detached from that river. Are we,
then, to admit the existence of another lake north-east of
Esmeraldar

Loffling, the celebrated pupil of Linnaeus, came to
Cumana as the botanist of the boundary expedition above
alluded to. After traversing the missions on the Piritu and
the Caroni he died on the 22d of February, 1756, at the
mission of Santa Eulalia de Murucuri, a little to the south
of the confluence of the Orinoco and the Caroni. The
documents of which Bauza speaks are the same as those on
which the great map of De la Cruz Olmedilla is based.
They constitute the type of all the maps which appeared in
England, Prance, and Germany up to the close of the last
century ; and they also served for the two maps drawn in
\756 by Peter Caulin, the historian of Solano' s expedition,
ind by an unskilful compiler, M. de Surville, Keeper of the
Archives of the Secretary of State's office at Madrid. The
discordance between these maps shews the little dependence
which can be placed on the surveys of the expedition;
besides which, Caulin's acute remarks lead us to perceive

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 245

the circumstances which gave occasion to the fiction of the
Lake Parime ; and Surville's map, which accompanies his
work, not only restores this lake under the name of the
White Sea and of the Mar Dorado, but also adds another
lake, from which, partly through lateral outlets, the Orinoco,
the Siapa, and the Ocamo issue. I was able to satisfy
myself on the spot of the fact, well known in the missions.,
that Don Jose Solano went indeed beyond the cataracts of
Atures and Maypures, but not beyond the confluence of the
Guaviare and the Orinoco, in lat, 4°.3' and long. 68°.09';
that the instruments of the Boundary Expedition were
not carried either to the Isthmus of the Pimichin and the
Rio Negro, or to the Cassiquiare; and that even on the
Upper Orinoco they were not taken above the mouth of the
Atabapo. This extensive country, in which previous to my
journey no exact observations had been attempted, had been
traversed since the time of Solano only by a few soldiers
sent in search of discoveries; and Don Apolinario de la
Puente (whose journals I obtained from the archives of the
province of Quiros), had collected, without critical discrimi-
nation, from the lying tales told by Indians, whatever could
flatter the credulity of the governor Centurion. No member
of the Expedition had seen any lake, and Don Apolinario
had not advanced farther than the Cerro Yumariquin and
the Gehette.

Having now established throughout the extensive district,
to which it is desired to direct the inquiring zeal of travellers,
a dividing line bounding the basin of the Rio Branco, it still
remains to remark, that for a century past no advance has

246 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

taken place in our geographical knowledge of the country
west of this valley between 61J0 and 65J° W. longitude.
The attempts repeatedly made by the Government of Spanish
Guiana, since the expeditions of Iturria and Solano, to reach
and to pass the Pacaraima mountains, have only produced
very inconsiderable results. When the Spaniards, in travel-
ling to the missions of the Catalonian Capuchin monks of
Barceloneta at the confluence of the Caroni and the Eio
Paragua, ascended the latter river, in going southward, to its
junction with the Paraguamusi, they founded at the site of
the latter junction the mission of Guirion, which at first
received the pompous name of Ciudad de Guirion. I place
it in about 4 J° of North latitude. From thence the gover-
nor Centurion, stimulated by the exaggerated accounts given
by two Indian chiefs, Paranacare and Arimuicapi, of the
powerful nation of the Ipurucotos, to search for el Dorado,
prosecuted what were then called spiritual conquests still
farther, and founded beyond the Pacaraima mountains the
two villages of Santa Eosa and San Bautista de Caudacacla ;
the former on the higher eastern bank of the Uraricapara, a
tributary of the Uraricuera which in the narrative of Rod-
riguez I find called Eio Curaricara ; and the latter six or
seven German (24 or 28 English) geographical miles farther
to the east south-east. The astronomer of the Portuguese
Boundary Commission, Don Antonio Pires de Sylva Pontes
Leme, captain of a frigate, and the captain of engineers,
Don Eicardo Franco d' Almeida de Serra, who between 1787
and 1804 surveyed with the greatest care the whole course
of the Eio Branco arid its upper branches, call the western-

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 247

most part of the Uraricapara " the Valley of Inundation."
They place the Spanish mission of Santa Rosa in 3°.46' N.
lat., and point out the route which leads from thence
northward across the chain of mountains to the Cano Ano-
capra, an affluent of the Paraguamusi, by means of which
one passes from the basin of the Eio Branco to that of the
Caroni. Two maps of these Portuguese officers, which con-
tain the whole details of the trigonometrical survey of the
windings of the Eio Branco, the Uraricuera, the Tacutu,
and the Mahu, have been kindly communicated to Colonel
Lapie and myself by the Count of Linhares. These valuable
unpublished documents, of which I have made 'use, are in
the hands of the learned geographer who began a consider-
able time ago to have them engraved at his own expense.
The Portuguese sometimes give the name of Eio Parime to
the whole of the Eio Branco, and sometimes confine that
denomination to one branch or tributary, the Uraricuera,
below the Cano Mayari and above the old mission of San
Antonio. As the words Paragua and Parime signify water,
great water, lake, or sea, it is not. surprising to find them
so often repeated among nations at a distance from each
other, the Omaguas on the Upper Maranoii, the Western
Guaranis, and the Caribs. In all parts of the world, as I
have already remarked, the largest rivers are called by those
who dwell on their banks " the Eiver," without any distinct
and peculiar appellation. Paragua, the name of a branch of
the Caroni, is also the name given by the natives to the
Upper Orinoco. The name Orinu^u is Tamanaki; and
Diego de Ordaz first heard it pronounced in 1531, when he

248 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

ascended the river to the mouth of the Meta. Besides the
" Valley of Inundation/' above spoken of, we find other
large lakes or expanses of water between the Eio Xuinuru
and the Parime. One of these belongs to the Tacutu river,
and the other to the Uraricuera. Even at the foot of the
Pacaraima mountains the rivers are subject to great perio-
dical overflows; and the Lake of Amucu, which will be
spoken of more in the sequel, imparts a similar character to
the country at the commencement of the plains. The
Spanish missions of Santa B/osa and San Bautista de Cauda-
cacla or Cayacaya, founded in the years 1770 and 1773 by
the Governor Don Manuel Centurion, were destroyed before
the close of the century, and since that period no fresh
attempt has been made to penetrate from the basin of the
Caroni to the southern declivity of the Pacaraima mountains.
The territory east of the valley of the Eio Branco has of
late years been the subject of some successful examination.
Mr. Hillhouse navigated the Massaruni as far as the bay of
Caranang, from whence, he says, a path would have con-
ducted the traveller in two days to the sources of the Mas-
saruni, and in three days to streams flowing into the Eio
Branco. In regard to the windings of the great river
Massaruni, described by -Mr. Hillhouse, that gentleman
remarks, in a letter written to me from Demerara (January
1, 1831), that "the Massaruni beginning from its source
flows first to the West, then to the North for one degree
of latitude, afterwards almost 200 English miles to the
East, and finally North and N.N.E. to its junction with
the Essequibo." As Mr. Hillhouse was unable to reach

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 249

the southern declivity of the Pacarima chain, he was not
acquainted with the Amucu Lake : he says himself, in his
printed account, that " from the information he had gained
from the Accaouais, who constantly traverse all the country
between the shore and the Amazons river, he had become
satisfied that there is no lake at all in these districts." This
statement occasioned me some surprise, as it was in direct
contradiction to the views which I had formed respecting the
Lake of Amucu, from which the Cano Pirara flows according
to the narratives of Hortsmann, Santos, aud Bodriquez,
whose accounts inspired me with the more confidence because
they agree entirely with the recent Portuguese manuscript
maps. Finally, after five years of expectation, Sir Robert
Schomburgk's journey has dispelled all doubts.

" It is difficult to believe," says Mr. Hillhouse, in his
interesting memoir on the Massaruni, " that the report of a
great inland water is entirely without foundation. It seems
to me possible that the following circumstances may have
given occasion to the belief in the existence of the fabulous
lake of the Parime. At some distance from the fallen rocks
of Teboco the waters of the Massaruni appear to the eye as
motionless as the tranquil surface of a lake. If at a more
or less remote epoch the horizontal stratum of granite at
Teboco had been perfectly compact and unbroken, the waters
must have stood at least fifty feet above tfheir present level,
and there would thus have been formed an immense lake,
ten or twelve English miles broad and 1500 to 2000 English
miles long." (Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1836, Sept.
p. 31 6.) It is not solely the vast extent of this supposed

•

250 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

inundation which prevents me from accepting this explana-
tion. I have seen plains (the Llanos), where during the
rainy season the overflowing of the affluents of the Orinoco
annually cover with water a space of 400 German geographical
square miles (equal to 6400 English geographical square
miles) . At such times the labyrinth of branches between the
Apure, the Arauca, the Capanaparo, and the Sinaruco (see
Maps 17 and 18 of my Geographical and Physical Atlas),
can no longer be traced, for the separate courses are oblite-
rated, and all appears one vast lake. But the fable of the
Dorado of the Parime, and of the White Sea or Lake of the
Parime, belongs historically, as I endeavoured to shew in
another work thirty years ago, to an entirely different part of
Guiana, namely, to the country south of the Pacaraima
mountains ; and originated in the shining appearance of the
micaceous rocks of the Ucucuamo, the name of the Eio
Parime (Eio Branco), the overflowings of the tributaries of
that river, and especially the existence of the Lake of Amucu,
which is in the vicinity of the Eio Eupunuwini or Eupunuri,
and is connected through the Pirara with the Eio Parime.

I have seen with pleasure that the travels of Sir Eobert
Schomburgk have fully confirmed these early views. The
part of his map which gives the course of the Esse-
quibo 'and the Eupunuri is entirely new and of great geo-
graphical importance. It places the Pacaraima chain in
3° 52' to 4° North latitude (I had given it 4° to 4° 10'),
and makes it reach the confluence of the Essequibo
and the Eupunuri, in 3° 5?' N. lat. and 60° 23' W. long,
from Paris (5'8° 01' from Greenwich). I had placed this spot

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 251

half a degree too far to the north. Sir Robert Schomburgk
calls the last named river Eupununi, according to the pro-
nunciation of the Macusis ; he gives as synonymes of Eupu-
niri, Eupunuwini and Opununy, the Carib tribes in these
districts having much difficulty in articulating the sound of
the letter r. The situation of Lake Amucu and its relations
to the Malm (Maou) and Tacutu (Tacoto) are quite in
accordance with my map of Columbia in 1825. We agree
equally well respecting the latitude of the lake,, which I gave
3° 35', and which he finds to be 3° 33' ; but the Carlo
Pirara, (Pirarara) which connects the Lake of Amucu with
the Eio Branco, flows from it to the north, instead of to the
west as I had supposed. The Sibarana of my map, of which
Hortsmann places the source near a fine mine of rock-crystal,
a little to the north of the Cerro Ucucuamo, is the Siparuni
of Schomburgk' s map. His Waa-Ekuru is the Tavaricuru
of the Portuguese geographer Pontes Leme ; it is the tribu-
tary of the Eupunuri, which approaches nearest to the
Lake of Amucu.

The following remarks from the narrative of Eobert
Schomburgk throw some light on the subject before us.
" The Lake of Amucu," says this traveller, " is incontestably
the nucleus of the Lake of Parime and the supposed White
Sea. When we visited it in December and January its
length scarcely amounted to a mile, and >.ts surface was half
covered with reeds." (This remark is found as early as
in D'Anville's map, in 1748.) " The Pirara issues from the
lake west north-west of the Indian village of Pirara, and falls
into the Maou or Mahu. The last named river, from such

252 CATAEACTS OF THE ORINOCO.

information as I was able to gather, rises on the north side
of the Pacaraima mountains, the easternmost part of which
only attains a height of 1500 Trench (in round numbers
1600 English) feet. The sources of the Malm are on a
plateau, from whence it descends in a fine waterfall called
Corona. We were about to visit this fall when on the third
day of our excursion to the mountains the sickness of one
of my companions obliged us to return to the station near
Lake Arnucu. The Mahu has "black" or coffee-brown
water, and its current is more rapid than that of the Hupu-
nuri. In the mountains through which it makes its way it
is about CO yards broad, and its environs are remarkably
picturesque. This valley, as well as the banks of the
Buroburo which flowa into the Siparuni, are inhabited by
the Macusis. In April the whole of the savannahs are over-
flowed, and present the peculiar phenomenon of the waters
belonging to different river basins being intermixed and
united. The enormous extent of this temporary inundation
may not improbably have given occasion to the story of the
Lake of Parime. During the rainy season there is formed
in the interior of the country a water communication between
the Essequibo, the Rio Branco, and Gran Para. Some
groups of trees, which rise like oases on the sand hills of the
savannahs, assume at the time of the inundation the character
of islands scattered over the extensive lake ; they are, no
doubt, the Ipomucena Islands of Don Antonio Santos/'

In D'AnvihVs manuscripts, which his heirs have kindly
permitted me to examine, I find that the surgeon Hortsmann,
of Hildesheim, who described these countries with great care,

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 253

saw a second Alpine lake, which he places two days' journey
above the confluence of the Mahu with the Rio Parime
(Tacutu ?) . It is a lake of black water on the top of a
mountain. He distinguishes it clearly from the Lake of
Amucu, which he describes as " covered with reeds/' The
narratives of Hortsmann and Santos are as far as the
Portuguese manuscript maps of the Bureau de la Marine at
Rio Janeiro from indicating or admitting a constant connec-
tion between the Rupunuri and the Lake of Amucu. In
D'Anville's maps the rivers are better drawn in the first
edition of his South America, published in 1748, than in
the more widely circulated edition of 1760. Schomburgk's
travels have completely established this general independence
of the basins of the Rupunuri arid the Essequibo ; but he
remarks that during the rainy season the Rio Waa-Ekuru,
a tributary of the Rupunuri, is in connection with the Cano
Pirara. Such is the* state of these river basins, wlu'ch
are, as it were, still imperfectly developed, and are almost
entirely without separating ridges.

The Rupunuri aud the village of Anai (lat. 3° 56', long.
58° 34'), are at present recognised as the political boundary
between the British and the Brazilian territories in these
uncultivated regions. Sir Robert Schomburgk makes his
chronologically determined longitude of the Lake of Amucu
depend on the mean of several lunar distances (East and
West) measured by him during his stay at Anai, where he
was detained some time by severe illness. His longitudes
for these points of the Parime are in general a degree more
easterly than the longitudes of my map of Columbia. I am
far from throwing any doubt on the observations of lunar

254 CATARACTS OP THE ORINOCO.

distances taken at Anai, and would only remark that their
calculation is important if it is desired to carry the com-
parison from the Lake of Amucu to Esmeralda, which I found
in long. 68° 23' 19" W. from Paris (66° 21' 19" Gr.)

We see, then, the great Mar de la Parima, — which was
so difficult to displace from our maps that, after my return
from America, it was still set down as having a length of
] 60 English geographical miles, — reduced by the result of
modern researches to the little Lake of Amucu, of two or three
miles circumference. The illusions cherished for nearly two
centuries (several hundred lives were lost in the last Spanish
expedition for the discovery of el Dorado, in 1775), have
thus finally terminated, leaving some results of geographical
knowledge as their fruit. In 1512, thousands of soldiers
perished in the expedition undertaken by Ponce de Leon
for the discovery of the "Fountain of Youth," sup-
posed to exist in one of the Bahama Islands called Bimini,
and which is not to be found on our maps. This Ex-
pedition led to the conquest of Florida, and to the know-
ledge of the great current of the Gulf Stream, which
issues forth through the Bahama channel. The thirst for
treasures, and the desire of renovated youth, stimulated with
nearly equal force the passions and cupidity of the nations
of Europe.

(10) p. 216.—" The Piriyuao, one of the noblest of
palm trees."

Compare Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, Nova Genera
Plant, sequinoct. T. i. p. 315.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 255

(u) p. 229. — " The vault or cemetery of an extinct
nation"

During the period of my stay in the forests of the Orinoco,
these caves of bones were examined by order of the Court.
The Missionary of the Cataracts had been unjustly accused
of having discovered in the caves treasures which had been
hidden there by the Jesuits previous to their flight.

THE NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

IN THE

PRIMEVAL FOREST.

VOL. 1.

THE NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

PRIMEVAL FOREST.

IF the vivid appreciation and sentiment of nature which
differ so greatly in nations of different descent, and if the
natural character and aspect of the countries which those
nations now inhabit, or which have been the scene of their
earlier wanderings or abode, have rendered different lan-
guages more or less rich in well denned and characteristic
expressions denoting the forms of mountains, the state of
vegetation, the appearance of the atmosphere, and the
contour and grouping of the clouds, it is also true that
long use, and perhaps their arbitrary employment by literary
men, have diverted many such words from their original
meaning. Terms have been gradually regarded as synony-
mous which ought to have been preserved distinct; and
thus languages have lost part of the vigour and the grace,
as well as the fidelity, which they might otherwise have
been capable of imparting to descriptions of natural scenery
and of the characteristic physiognomy of a landscape. With
the view of shewing how much an intimate acquaintance
and contact with nature, and the wants and necessities
of a laborious nomade life, may increase the riches of a

260 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

language, I would recall the numerous characteristic appella-
tions which may be used in Arabic (l) and in Persian to
distinguish plains, steppes, and deserts, according as they
are quite bare, covered with sand, broken by tabular masses
of rock, or interspersed with patches of pasturage, or with
long tracts occupied by social plants. Scarcely less striking
is it to observe in the old Castilian idiom (2) the many expres-
sions afforded for describing the physiognomy of moun-
tain-masses, and more particularly for designating those
features which, recurring in every zone of the earth's
surface, announce from afar to the attentive beholder the
nature of the rock. As the declivities of the Andes, of
Peru, Chili, and Mexico, and the mountainous parts of the
Canaries, the Antilles and the Philippines, are all inhabited
by men of Spanish descent, and as these are the parts of
the earth where, (with the exception, perhaps, of the
Himalaya and the Thibetian Highlands), the manner of
,ife of the inhabitants is most affected by and dependent
on the form of the earth's surface, so all the expressions
which the language of the mother country afforded for
denoting the forms of mountains in trachytic, basaltic,
and porphyritic districts, as well as in those where schists,
limestones, and sandstone are the prevailing rocks, have
been happily preserved in daily use. Under such influences
even newly formed words become part of the common
treasure. Speech is enriched and animated by everything
that*teiids to and promotes truth to nature, whether in
rendering the impressions received through the senses
from the contemplation of the external world, or in

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 261

expressing thoughts, emotions, or sentiments which have
their sources in the inner depths of our being.

In descriptions of natural objects or scenery, both in
the manner of viewing the phenomena, and in the choice
of the expressions employed to describe them, this truth
to nature must ever be kept in view as the guiding aim :
its attainment will be at once most easily and most effectually
secured by simplicity in the narration of what we have
ourselves beheld or experienced, and by limiting and
individualising the locality with which the narrative is
connected. Generalisation of physical views, and the
statement of general results, belong rather to the " study
of the Cosmos/'' which, indeed, must ever continue to be
to us a science of Induction ; but the animated description
of organic forms (plants and animals) in their local and
picturesque relations to the varied surface of the earth
(as a small fragment of the whole terrestrial life) affords
materials towards the study of the Cosmos, and also tends
to advance it by the stimulus or impulse imparted to the
mind when artistic treatment is applied to phenomena
of nature on a great scale.

Among such phenomena must certainly be classed the
vast forest region which, in the tropical portion of South
America, fills the great connected basins of the Orinoco
and the Amazons. If the name of primeval forest, or
"Urwald," which has of late years been so prodigally
bestowed, is to be given to any forests on the faW of
the earth, none can claim it perhaps so strictly as the
region of which we are speaking. The term " Urwald/'

262 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

primitive or primeval forest, as well as Urseit and Urvolk, —
primitive age, primitive nation, — are words of rather inde-
finite meaning, and, for the most part, only relative import.
If this name is to be given to every wild forest full of
a thick growth of trees on which Man has never laid a
destroying hand, then the phenomenon is one which
belongs to many parts of the temperate and cold zones.
But if the character of the " Urwald" is that of a forest
so truly impenetrable, that it is impossible to clear with
an axe any passage between trees of eight or twelve feet
diameter for more than a few paces, then such forests
belong exclusively to the tropical regions. Nor is it by
any means, as is often supposed in Europe, only the
interlacing " lianes" or climbers which make it impossible
to penetrate the forest; the "lianes" often form only a
very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacle
is presented by an undergrowth of plants filling up every
interval in a zone where all vegetation has a tendency
to become ligneous. An impatient desire for the fulfil-
ment of a long cherished wish may sometimes have led
travellers who have only just landed in a tropical country,
or perhaps island, to imagine that although still in the
immediate vicinity of the sea-shore they had entered the
precincts of a primeval forest, or " Urwald," such as I
have described as impenetrable. In this they deceived
themselves ; it is not every tropical forest which is entitled
to a$ appellation which I have scarcely ever used in the
narrative of my travels ; although I believe that of all
investigators of nature now living, Bonpland, Martius,

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 263

Poppig, Robert and Richard Schomburgk, and myself,
are those who have spent the longest period of time in
primeval forests in the interior of a great continent.

Rich as is the Spanish language, (as I have already
remarked), in appellations of distinct and definite meaning
in the description of nature, yet the same word ' ' Monte"
is employed for mountain and forest, for cerro, (montana)
and for selva. In an inquiry into the true breadth and
greatest easterly extension of the chain of the Andes, I
have shewed how this two-fold signification of the word
" monte" led to the introduction, in a fine and extensively
circulated English map of South America, of high mountain
ranges, where, in reality, only plains exist. When the
Spanish map of La Cruz Olmedilla, which has served as
the foundation of so many other maps, shewed "Montes
de Cacao," (3) " cacao woods," Cordilleras were made to rise
although the cacao seeks only the lowest and hottest
localities.

If we comprehend in one general view the wooded
region which includes the whole of the interior of South
America, from the grassy steppes of Yenezuela (los Llanos
de Caracas) to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, or from 8°
North to 19° South latitude, we shall perceive that this
connected forest of the tropical zone has an extent un-
equalled in any other portion of the earth's surface. Its
area is about twelve times that of Germany. Traversed
in all directions by systems of rivers, in which the minor
and tributary streams sometimes exceed our Rhine or
our Danube in the abundance of their waters, it owes

264 NOCTURNAL LIFE OP ANIMALS

the wonderful luxuriance of the growth of its trees to
the combined influence of great moisture and high tem-
perature. In the temperate zone, and especially in
Europe and Northern Asia, forests may be named from
particular genera or species, which, growing together as
social plants, (plantse sociales) form separate and distinct
woods. In the northern forests of Oaks, Pines, and
Birches, and in the eastern forests of Limes or Linden
trees, usually only one species of Amentacese, Coniferse,
or Tiliaceae, prevails or is predominant ; sometimes a single
species of Needle-trees is intermingled with the foliage
of trees of other classes. Tropical forests, on the other
hand, decked with thousands of flowers, are strangers to
such uniformity of association ; the exceeding variety of
their flora renders it vain to ask of what trees the primeval
forest consists. A countless number of families are here
crowded together, and even in small spaces individuals
of the same species are rarely associated. Each day, and
at each change of place, new forms present themselves
to the traveller, who, however, often finds that he cannot
reach the blossoms of trees whose leaves and ramifications
had previously arrested his attention.

The rivers, with their countless lateral arms, afford the
only routes by which the country can be traversed. Between
the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, astrono-
mical observations, and where these were wanting, determi-
nsbtions by compass of the direction of the rivers, respec-
tively shewed us that two lonely mission villages .might be
only a few miles apart, and yet that the monks when they

IN THE PKIMEVAL FOKEST. 265

wished to visit each other could only do so by spending a
day and a half in following the windings of small streams,
in canoes hollowed out of the trunks of trees. A striking
evidence of the impenetrability of particular parts of the
forest is afforded by a trait related by an Indian of the habits
of the large American tiger, or panther-like jaguar. While
in the Llanos of Varinas and the Meta, and in the Pampas of
Buenos Ayres, the introduction of European cattle, horses,
and mules has enabled the beasts of prey to find an abun-
dant subsistence, — so that since the first discovery of
America their numbers have increased exceedingly in those
extended and treeless grassy steppes, — their congeners in
the dense forests around the sources of the Orinoco lead a
very different and far less easy life. In a bivouac near the
junction of the Cassiquiare with the Orinoco we had had the
misfortune of losing a large dog, to which we were much
attached, as the most faithful and affectionate companion of
our wanderings. Being still uncertain whether he had been
actually killed by the tigers, a faint hope of recovering him
induced us, in returning from the mission of Esmeralda
through the swarms of musquitoes by which it is infested,
to spend another night at the spot where .we had so long
sought him in vain. We heard the cries of the jaguar,
probably the very individual which we suspected of the
deed, extremely near to us ; and as the clouded sky made
astronomical observations impossible, we passed part of the
night in making our interpreter (lenguaraz) repeat to us the
accounts given by our native boat's crew of the tigers of the
country.

NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

The "black jaguar" was, they said, not unfrequently
found there ; it is the largest and most bloodthirsty variety,
with black spots scarcely distinguishable on its deep dark-
brown skin. It lives at the foot of the mountains of Mara-
guaca and Unturan. One of the Indians of the Durimund
tribe then related to us that jaguars are often led, by their
love of wandering and by their rapacity, to lose themselves in
such impenetrable parts of the forest that they can no longer
hunt along the ground, and live instead in the trees, where
they are the terror of the families of monkeys and of the
prehensile-tailed viverra, the Cercoleptes. I borrow these
notices from journals written at the time in German, and
which were not entirely exhausted in the Narrative of my
Travels, which I published in the French language. They
contain a detailed description of the nocturnal life, or perhaps
I might rather say the nocturnal voices, of the wild animals
in the forests of the torrid zone ; which appears to me par-
ticularly suited to form part of a work bearing the title of
the present volumes. That which is written down on the
spot, either in the immediate presence of the phenomena, or
soon after the reception of the impressions which they
produce, may at least lay claim to more life and freshness
than can be expected in recollections.

Descending from West to East the Rio Apure, the overflow-
ings of whose waters and the inundations produced by them
were noticed in the chapter on Steppes and Deserts, we
arrived at its junction with the Orinoco. It was the season
of low water, and the average breadth of the Apure was only
a little more than twelve hundred English feet, yet I found

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOBEST. 267

the Orinoco at the confluence of the two rivers, not far from
the granite rock of Curiquima, where I was able to measure
a base line, still upwards of 11430 French (12180 English)
feet wide. Yet this point, i. e. the Eock of Curiquima, is
four hundred geographical miles in a straight line from the
sea and from the Delta of the Orinoco. Part of the plains
watered by the Apure and the Pagara are inhabited by
tribes of the Yaruros and Achaguas, who, as they persist in
maintaining their independence, are called savages in the
mission villages established by the monks : their manners,
however, are scarcely more rude than those of the Indians
of the villages, — who, although baptized and living " under
the bell" (baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught
and uninstructed.

On leaving the Island del Diamante, in which Zambos
who speak • Spanish cultivate sugar-canes, we entered on
scenes of nature characterized by wildness and grandeur.
The air was filled with countless flocks of flamingoes (Phreni-
copterus) and other water birds, which appeared against the
blue sky like a dark cloud with continually varying outlines.
The river had here narrowed to between 900 and 1000 feet,
and flowing in a perfectly straight line formed a kind of
canal enclosed on either side by dense wood. The margin
of the forest presents at this part a singular appearance. In
front of the almost impenetrable wall of giant trunks of
Csesalpinia, Cedrela, and Desmanthus, there rises from
the sandy river beach, with the greatest regularity, a
low hedge of Sauso, only four feet high, consisting of a
small shrub, Hermesia castaneifolia, which forms a new

268 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

genus (4) of the family of Euphorbiacese. Some slender
thorny palms, called by the Spaniards Piritu and Coroso
(perhaps species of Martinezia and Bactris), stand next ; and
the whole resembles a close, well-pruned garden hedge,
having only occasional openings at considerable distances
from each other, which have doubtless been made by the
larger four-footed beasts of the forest to gain easy access to
the river. One sees, more especially in the early morning
and at sunset, the American tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and
the peccary, lead their young through these openings to the
river to drink. "When startled by the passing canoe, they
do not attempt to regain the forest by breaking forcibly
through the hedge which has been described, but one has
the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along
between the river and the hedge for four or five hundred
paces, until they have reached the nearest opening, when
they disappear through it. In the course of an almost
uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 geographical miles
on the Orinoco to near its sources, on the Cassiquiare, and
on the Bio Negro, — and during which we were confined for
seventy-four days to a small canoe, — we enjoyed the repeti-
tion of the same spectacle at several different points, and I
may add, always with new delight. There came down
together, to drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups consisting of
the most different classes of animals, the larger mammalia,
being associated with many coloured herons, palamedeas,
and proudly-stepping curassow and cashew birds (Crax
Alector and C. Pauxi). "Es como en el Paraiso;"
it is here as in Paradise, said, with a pious air, our

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 269

steersman, an old Indian who had been brought up in the
house of an ecclesiastic. The peace of the golden age was,
however, far from prevailing among the animals of this
American paradise, which carefully watched and avoided
each other. The Capybara, a Cavy three or four feet long,
(a magnified repetition of the Brazilian Cavy, Cavia aguti), is
devoured in the river by the crocodiles, and on shore by the
tiger. It runs so indifferently that we were several times
able to catch individuals from among the numerous herds
which presented themselves.

Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we
passed the night as usual, under the open sky, on a sandy
flat on the bank of the Rio Apure closely bordered by the
impenetrable forest. It was not without difficulty that we
succeeded in finding dry wood to kindle the fire with which
it is always customary in that country to surround a, bivouac,
in order to guard against the attacks of the jaguar. The
night was humid, mild, and moonlight. Several crocodiles
approached the shore ; I think I have observed these animals
to be attracted by fire, like our cray-fish and many other
inhabitants of the water. The oars of our boat were placed
upright and carefully driven into the ground, to form poles
from which our hammocks could be suspended. Deep
stillness prevailed ; only from time to time we heard the
blowing of the fresh-water dolphins (5) which are peculiar to
the Orinoco net- work of rivers (and, according to Colebrooke,
to the Ganges as far as Benares), which followed each other
in long lines.

Soon after 11 o'clock such a disturbance began to be

270 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS

heard in the adjoining forest, that for the remainder of the
night all sleep was impossible. The wild cries of animals
appeared to rage throughout the forest. Among the many
voices which resounded together, the Indians could only
recognise those which, after short pauses in the general
uproar, were first heard singly. There was the monotonous
howling of the aluates (the howling monkeys) ; the plain-
tive, soft, and almost flute-like tones of the small sapajous ;
the snorting grumblings of the striped nocturnal monkey (6)
(the Nyctipithicus trivirgatus, which I was the first to de-
scribe) ; the interrupted cries of the great tiger, the cuguar
or maneless American lion, the peccary, the sloth, and a host
of parrots, of parraquas, and other pheasant-like birds.
When the tigers came near the edge of the forest, our -dog,
which had before barked incessantly, came howling to seek
refuge under our hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the
tiger was heard to proceed from amidst the high branches of
a tree, and was in such case always accompanied by the
plaintive piping of the monkeys, who were seeking to
escape from the unwonted pursuit.

If one asks the Indians why this incessant noise and dis-
turbance arises on particular nights,, they answer, with a
smile, that "the animals are rejoicing in the bright moon-
light, and keeping the feast' of the full moon." To me it
appeared that the scene had probably originated in some
accidental combat, and that hence the disturbance had
spread to other animals, and thus the noise had increased
more and more. The jaguar pursues the peccaries and
tapirs, and these, pressing against each other in their flight,

IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 271

break through the interwoven tree-like shrubs which impede
their escape; the apes on the tops of the trees, being
frightened by the crash, join their cries to those of the
larger animals; this arouses the tribes of birds, who build
their nests in communities, and thus the whole animal
world becomes in a state of commotion. Longer experience
taught us that it is by no means always the celebration ol
the brightness of the moon which disturbs the repose of the
woods : we witnessed the same occurrence repeatedly, and
found that the voices were loudest during violent falls of
rain, or when, with loud peals of thunder, the flashing
lightning illuminated the deep recesses of the forest. The
good-natured Franciscan monk, who, although he had been
suffering for several months from fever, accompanied us
through the Cataracts of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos
on the Bio Negro, and to the Brazilian boundary, used to
say, when fearful on the closing in of night that there might
be a thunder-storm, " May Heaven grant a quiet night both
to us and to the wild beasts of the forest I"

Scenes, such as those I have just described, were wonder-
fully contrasted with the stillness which prevails within the
tropics during the noontide hours of a day of more than
usual heat. I borrow from the same journal the recollec-
tions of a day at the Narrows of Baraguan. At this part of
its course the Orinoco forces for itself a passage through the
western portion of the Parime Mountains. What is called
at this remarkable pass a "Narrow" (Angostura del Bara-
guan), is still a bed or water-basin of 890 toises (5690
English feet) in breadth. On the naked rocks which formed

272 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS.

the shores we saw only, besides an old withered stem of
Aubletia (Apeiba tiburba), and a new Apocinea (Allamanda
salicifolia), a few silvery croton shrubs. A thermometer
observed in the shade, but brought within a few inches of
the towering mass of granite rock, rose to above 40° Reau-
mur (122° Fah.) All distant objects had wave-like undu-
lating outlines, the effect of mirage ; not a breath of air
stirred the fine dust-like sand. The sun was in the zenith,
and the flood of light which he poured down upon the river,
and which, from a slight rippling movement of the waters,
flashed sparkling back, rendered still more sensible the red
haze which veiled the distance. All the naked rocks and
boulders around were covered with a countless number of
large thick-scaled iguanas, gecko -lizards, and variously
spotted salamanders. Motionless, with uplifted heads and
open mouths, they appeared to inhale the burning air with
ecstacy. At such times the larger animals seek shelter in
the recesses of the forest, and the birds hide themselves
under the thick foliage of the trees, or in the clefts of the
rocks ; but if, in this apparent entire stillness of nature,
one listens for the faintest tones which an attentive ear can
seize, there is perceived an all-pervading rustling sound, a
humming and fluttering of insects close to the ground, and
in the lower strata of the atmosphere. Every thing an-
nounces a world of organic activity and life. In every
bush, in the cracked bark of the trees, in the earth under-
mined by hymenopterous insects, life stirs audibly. It is,
as it were, one of the many voices of Nature, heard only by
the sensitive and reverent ear of her true votaries.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 273

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. .

(J) p. 260. — " Characteristic names in Arabic and
Persian."

More than twenty different terms might be cited as used
by Arabs in speaking of steppes, (tanufah), to denote deserts
without water, entirely bare, covered with siliceous sand, or
interspersed with spots affording some pasture: (sahara,
kafr, mikfar, tih, and mehme.) Sahl, is a low plain ; dak-
kah, a desolate elevated plain. In Persian, " beyaban" sig-
nifies the arid sandy desert, — as do the Mogul " gobi," and
the Chinese "han-hai," and " scha-mo." "Yaila" is a
steppe covered rather with grasses or herbage than with
herbaceous plants ; so are also the Mogul " kiidah," and
the Turkish « tala," or " tschol," and the Chinese "huang."
" Deshti-reft" is an elevated plain devoid of vegetation.
(Humboldt, Delation hist. T. ii. p. 158.)

(2) p. 260. — " In the old Castilian idiom"

Pico, picacho, mogote, cucurucho, espigon, loma tendida,
mesa, panecillo, farallon, tablon, pefia, penon, pefiasco,
pefioleria, roca partida, laxa, cerro, sierra, serrania, cordil-
lera, monte, montafia, montafiuela, cadena de montes, los
altos, malpais, reventazon, bufa, &c.

VOL. i. T

274 NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS.

(3) p. 263.—" Where the map had exhibited Monies
de Cacao."

On the range of hills which had been converted into the
lofty Andes de Cuchao, see my Eel. hist. T. iii. p. 238.

(4) p. 268.— "Hermesia."

The genus Hermesia, the Sauso, has been described by
Bonpland, and figured in our Plantes equinoxiales, T. i.
p. 162, tab. xlvi.

(5) p. 269.—" The 'fresh-water dolphin."

These are not sea-dolphins, ascending the rivers for a
great distance, as is done by some species of Pleuronectes
(flat fish, which always have both eyes on one side of the
body) ; for example, the Limande (Pleuronectes Limanda),
which comes up the Loire to Orleans. Some sea forms of
fish, as dolphins and skates, are repeated in the great rivers
of both continents. The fresh-water dolphin of the Apure
and the Orinoco differs specifically from the Delphinus gan-
geticus, as well as from all sea-dolphins. See my Eel. hist.
T. ii. pp. 223, 239, 406-413.

(6) p. 270.—" The striped nocturnal monkey."

This is the Douroucouli, or Cusi-cusi of the Cassiquiare,
described by me as Simia trivirgata in my Eecueil d'Obser-
vations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic comparee, T. i. p. 806-
311, tab. xxviii., the plate being taken from a drawing
made by myself from the living animal. We subsequently

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 275

saw this nocturnal monkey living in the menagerie of the
Jardin des Plantes at Paris. (See the work above cited, T. ii.
p. 340.) Spix also found this remarkable little animal on
the Amazons river, and called it Nyctipithecus vociferans.

Potsdam, June 1849.

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

I AM indebted to Mr. Pentland (whose scientific labours
have thrown so much light on the geology and geography
of Bolivia) for the following determinations, which he com-
municated to me in a letter written from Paris, in October
1848, after the publication of his great map : —

Nevado of Sorata, or Long, from Height in

Ancohuma. S. lat. Greenwich. English Feet.

South Peak 15° 51' 33" 68° 33' 55" 21286

North Peak 15° 49' 18" 68° 33' 52" 21043

Illimani.

South Peak 16° 38' 52'' 67° 49' 18" 21145

Middle Peak ....16° 38' 26" 67° 49' 17" 21094

North Peak 16° 37' 50" 67° 49' 39" 21060

The heights (with the exception .of the unimportant dif-
ference of a few feet in the South Peak of Illimani) are the
same as those given in the map of the Lake of Titicaca. A
sketch of the last-named mountain (Iliimani), as it shews
itself in all its majesty from La Paz, has been given by Mr.
Pentland in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,
Vol. V. (1835), p. 77. This was five years after the publi-
cation of the first measurements in the Annuaire du Bureau
des Longitudes for 1830, p. 323, which results I myself

278 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

hastened to make known in Germany. (Hertha, Zeitschrift
fin* Erd und Volkerkunde, von Berghaus, Bd. xiii. 1829,
S. 3-29.) The Nevado de Sorata is to the east of the
village Sorata, or Esquibel : it is called in the Ymarra lan-
guage, according to Pentland, Ancomani, Itampu, and
Ulhampu. We recognise in " Illimani," the Ymarra word
"illi," snow.

If, however, in the eastern chain of Bolivia the Sorata
was long assumed 3718 French, or 3952 English feet, and
the Illimani 2675 French, or 2851 English, feet too high,
there are in the western chain of the same country, accord-
ing to Pentland's map of Titicaca (1848), four peaks to the
east of Arica and between lat. 18° 7' and 18° 25', all of
which are higher than Chimborazo, which is 21422 English
or 20100 Trench feet. These four peaks are —

Pomarape 21700 English feet, or 20360 French feet.

Gualateiri 21960 " " 20604 "

Parinacota 22030 " " 20670 "

Bahama 22350 " " 20971 "

Berghaus has applied to the eastern and western chains
of the Andes of Bolivia the investigation published by me
in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, T. iv. 1825, p.
225-253, of the proportion (very different in different
mountain chains), which the general height of the ridge, the
crest, or kamm (the mean height of the passes), bears to the
highest summits or culminating points. He finds, following
Pentland's map, the mean height of the passes in the eastern
chain 12672 French, or 13502 English feet; and in the

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 279

western chain 13602 French, or 14896 English feet. The
culminating points are 19972 and 20971 French, 21286
and 22350 English feet; consequently the ratio of the
height of the ridge to that of the culminating point is, in
the eastern chain, as 1 : 1.57, and in the western chain as
1 : 1.54. (Berghaus, Zeitschrift fur Erdkunde, Band. ix.
S. 322-326). This ratio, which is, as it were, the mea-
sure of the subterranean elevating force, is very similar to
'that which exists in the Pyrenees, but very different from
the Alps, where the mean height of the passes is less as
compared with Mont Blanc. The ratios are, in the
Pyrenees, =1 : 1.43, and in the Alps, =1 : 2.09.

But, according to Fitz Roy and Darwin, the height of the
Sahama is still surpassed by 796 French, or 850 English
feet, by that of the volcano of Aconcagua, on the north east
of Valparaiso, in (Mi, in S. lat. 32° 39'. The officers of
the Adventure and Beagle, in Fitz Roy's Expedition, found,
in August 1835, the summit of Acongagua between 23000
and 23400 English feet. If we take it at 23200 (equal to
21767 Paris feet), this volcano would be 1667 French, or
1777 English, feet higher than the Chimborazo. (Fitz
Roy, Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, 1839, Vol. ii.
p. 481; Darwin, Journal of Researches, 1845, pp. 223 and
291.) According to more recent calculations, the height of
Acongagua is given as 22431 French, or 23907 English
feet. (Mary Somerville, Physical Geogr. 1849, Vol. ii.
p. 425.)

Our knowledge of the systems of mountains which, north
of the parallels of 30° and 31° N. lat., are called the Rocky

280 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

Mountains arid the Sierra Nevada of California, has received
most important additions, geologically, botanically, hypso-
metrically, and geographically by astronomical determina-
tions of position, from the excellent works of Charles Fre-
mont (Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, an
illustration of his Map of Oregon and California, 1848) ; of
Dr. Wislizenus (Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico,
connected with Col. Doniphan's Expedition, 1848) ; and of
Lieutenants Abert and Peck (Expedition on the Upper Ar-
kansas, 1845; and Examination of New Mexico in 1846
and 1847.) There prevails throughout these different
North American works a true scientific spirit, which is de-
serving of the greatest commendation. The remarkable
elevated plain, which rises to an uninterrupted height of
four or five thousand French (4260 and 5330 English) feet,
between the .Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of
California, of wliich I have spoken in p. 44, and which is
called the Great Basin, forms an inland closed river basin
and has hot springs and salt lakes. None of its rivers, —
Bear Eiver, Carson River, and Humboldt River, — find their
way to the sea. The Lake, which I was led by combina-
tions and inferences to represent, in the great Map of Mexico
drawn by me in 1804, under the name of Lake Timpano-
gos, is the great Salt Lake of Fremont's Map : it is sixty
geographical miles long from north to south, and ten broad ;
and it communicates with the fresh water lake of Utah,
which is situated at a higher level, and receives the Timpa-
nogos or Timpanaozu River, which enters it from the east-
ward, in lat. 40° 13'. The circumstance of the Timpano-

HYPSOMh/TRIC ADDENDA. 281

gos Lake of my map not having been placed by me suffi-
ciently far to the north and west, is to be attributed to the
entire want, at that time, of any astronomical determina-
tions of the position of Santa TC, in New Mexico. The
error amounts, for the western margin of the lake, to almost
50 minutes of arc ; a difference of absolute longitude which
will appear less surprising, if it is remembered that my
itinerary map of Guanaxuato could only be based for 1 5
degrees of latitude on compass surveys, or compass direc-
tions, for which I was indebted to Don Pedro de Rivera.
(Humboldt, Essai polit. sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T. i. pp.
127-136.) These directions being differently combined
by my early deceased fellow-labourer, Herr Friesen, and
myself, gave him as the result of his combinations 107° 58'
from Paris as the longitude of Santa Fe, and to me as the
result of mine, 107° 13'. According to actual astronomical
determinations since obtained, the true longitude appears to
be 108° 22' W. of Paris, or 106° 00' W. of Greenwich.
The relative position of the beds of fossil salt — found in
"thick strata of red clay," on the south east of the island-
studded Great Salt Lake (my Laguna de Timpanogos), and
not far from the present Fort Mormon and the Utah Lake-
was given with perfect correctness in my large map of Mexico.
I may refer on this point to the latest evidence of the tra-
veller who made the first well-assured determinations of
geographical position in that district: — if The mineral or
rock salt, of which a specimen is placed in Congress Library,
was found in the place marked by Humboldt in his map of

282 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA..

New Spain (northern halt'), as derived from the journal of
the missionary Father Escalante, who attempted (1777) to
penetrate the unknown country from Santa Fe of New
Mexico to Monterey of the Pacific Ocean. South-east of
the Lake Timpanogos is the chain of the Wha-satch Moun-
tains ; and in this, at the place where Humboldt has written
Montagues de sel gemme, this mineral is found." (Fremont,
Geogr. Mem. of Upper California, 1848, pp. 8 and 67 ;
compare Humboldt, Essai politique, T. ii. p. 261.)

A great historical interest attaches to this part of the
highland, and more particularly to the country round the
Lake of Timpanogos, which is perhaps the same with the
Lake of Teguayo, the ancestral seat of the Aztecs. In their
migration from Aztlan to Tula, and to the Valley of Tenoch-
titlan (Mexico), this people made three halting places or
stations, at which the ruins of the Casas grandes are still to
be seen. The first sojourn of the Aztecs was at the Lake
of Teguayo, the second on the Rio Gila, and the third not
far from the Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant Abert found
on the banks of the Gila the same immense number of frag-
ments of pottery ornamented with painting, and scattered
over a considerable tract of ground, which had astonished
the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro Fonte in that
locality. These remains of the products of human skill are
supposed to indicate the existence of a former higher civili-
sation in these now solitary regions. Remains of buildings
ia the singular style of architecture of the Aztecs, and of
their houses of seven stories, are also found far to the east-

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 283

ward of the Eio Grande del Norte ; for example, in Taos.
(Compare Abert's Examination of New Mexico, in the Do-
cuments of Congress, No. 41, pp. 489 and 581 — 605, with
my Essai pol. T. ii. pp. 241 — 244.) The Sierra Nevada of
California is parallel to the Coast of the Pacific ; but between
the latitudes of 34° and 41°, between San Buenaventura
and the Bay of Trinidad, there runs, on the West of the
Sierra Nevada, another (smaller) coast chain, of which Monte
del Diablo, 3448 French, 3674 English feet high, is the
culminating point. In the narrow valley, between this
coast chain and the great Sierra Nevada, flow from the south
the Eio de San Joaquin, and from the north the Eio del
Sacramento, on the banks of which, in rich alluvial soil, are
the rich gold- washings now so much resorted to.

I have already referred, p. 43, to a hypsometric levelling,
and to barometric measurements made from the junction of
the Kanzas Eiver with the Missouri to the Pacific, or
throughout the immense extent of 28 degrees of longitude.
Dr. Wislizenus has now successfully continued the levelling
began by me from the city of Mexico, in the Equinoctial
Zone, to the North as far as Santa Fe del Nuevo Mexico,
in lat. 35° 38'. It will be seen, perhaps, with surprise,
that the elevated plain which forms the broad crest of the
Mexican Andes is far from sinking down, as had long been
supposed, to an inconsiderable height. I give here for the
first time, according to the measurements which we at present
possess, the elevations of several points, forming a line of
levelling from the city of Mexico to Santa Fe, which latter

284; HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

town is less than four German (sixteen English) geographical
miles from the Bio del Norte.

French Feet. Eng. Feet. Observer.

Mexico .......... 7008 7490 Ht.

Tula ........... 6318 6733 Ht.

San Juan del Bio ...... 6090 6490 Ht.

Queretaro ......... 5970 6363 Ht.

Celaya. . : ........ 5646 6017 Ht.

Salamanca ......... 5406 5761 Ht.

Guanaxuato ......... 6414 6836 Ht.

Silao . . . . ....... 5546 5910 Br.

Villa de Leon ........ 5755 6133 Br.

Lagos ........... 5983 6376 Br.

Aguas Calientes ....... 5875 6261 Br.

San Luis Potosi ....... 5714 6090 Br.

Zacatecas .......... 7544 .8040 Br.

Fresnillo .......... 6797 7244 Br.

Durango .......... 6426 6848 (Oteiza)

Parras. . . . %. ...;.. 4678 4985 Ws.

Saltillo . . . ..... ... 4917 5240 Ws.

ElBolsondeMapimi

Chihuahua ......... 4352 4638 Ws.

Cosiquiriachi ........ 5886 6273 Ws.

Passo del Norte, on the Rio Grande del ") 35 -^ ogio -ry

JN OlTtG • •••••••••<i)

Santa Fe del Nuevo Mexico . . . 6612 7047 Ws.

The letters Ws., Br., and Ht., are placed to distinguish the
barometric measurements of Dr. Wislizenus, Oberbergrath
Burkart, and my own. "Wislizenus has appended to his
valuable memoir three vertical sections of the surface of the
ground : one from Santa Fe to Chihuahua by Passo del

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 285

Norte; one from Chihuahua to Reynosa by Parras; and
one from Fort Independence (a little to the east of the
Confluence of the Missouri and the Kanzas River) to Santa
3?e. The calculation is founded on daily corresponding
observations of the barometer, made by Engelmann at St.
Louis, and by Lilly at New Orleans. If we consider that
the difference of latitude between Santa Ee and Mexico is
16°, and that thus (apart from deviations from a straight
line) the distance in the north and south direction is above
960 geographical miles, we are led to inquire whether there
be in any other part of the whole globe a similar conforma-
tion of the Earth, equal in extent and elevation (between
5000 and 7000 French, or 5330 and 7460 English feet
above the level of the sea) to the highland of which I have just
given the levelling, and yet over which four-wheeled waggons
can travel as they do from Mexico to Santa Ee. It is
formed by the broad, undulating, flattened crest of the
chain of the Mexican Andes, and is not the swelling of a
valley between two mountain chains, as is the case in some
other remarkable elevations of plain or undulating suface —
in the Northern Hemisphere, in the "Great Basin" between
the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, —
in the Southern Hemisphere, in the high plain of the lake
of Titicaca, between the eastern and western chains of the
Andes of Bolivia, — and in Asia, in the highlands of Thibet,
between the Himalaya and the Kuen-ltin.

GENERAL SUMMARY

OF THE

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

GENERAL SUMMARY

CONTENTS OF VOL. L

Preface to the First Edition — p. vii. to p. ix.
Preface to the Second and Third Editions — p. xi. to p. XT.

Note by the Translator — p. xvii.
Steppes and Deserts — p. 1 to p. 26.

Coast chain and mountain valleys of Caraccas. Lake of Tacarigua.
Contrast in respect to the luxuriance of vegetation between those
districts and the treeless plains. The steppe regarded as the bottom
of a Mediterranean Sea ; broken strata a little higher than the rest
of the plain called "banks." General phenomena of extensive
plains ; the Heaths of Europe, the Pampas and Llanos of South
America, the African Deserts, and the Steppes of Northern Asia.
Different characters of the vegetable covering of the surface.
Animal life. Pastoral nations, and their invasive migrations. 1—6

Description of the South American plains and prairies — their extent
and climate ; the latter dependent on the outline of the coasts, and
on the hypsometric conformation of the New Continent. Comparison
with the plains and deserts of Africa . . . . 7 — 13

Original absence of pastoral life in America. Food furnished by the
Mauritia palm ; the Guaranis' huts raised on trees . 13 — 17

VOL. I. U

290 SUMMART OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Since the discovery of America the Llanos have become more habitable.
Extraordinary increase in the number of wild cattle, horses, asses,
and mules. Description of the season of extreme dryness, and of
the rainy season. Appearance of the surface of the ground and of
the sky. Life of the animals — their sufferings, their conflicts;
power of adaptation with which certain animals and plants are
endowed. Jaguars, crocodiles, and electric fishes. Unequal conflict
between Gymnoti and horses 17 — 23

Retrospective glance at the countries surrounding the Steppes and
Deserts. .Forest wildernesses of the Orinoco and the Amazons.
Indian tribes separated by the wonderful diversity of their languages
and differences of their habits ; their hardships, and frequent
variance between the different tribes. Figures graven on the rocks
show that these solitudes were once the seat of a degree of civili-
sation which has now disappeared .... 23—26

Scientific Elucidations and Additions — p. 27 to p. 204.
The island-studded lake of Tacarigua ; its relations to the neighbouring
mountain chains. Geological description. Progress of cultivation
and of European civilisation. Varieties of the sugar-cane. Cacao
plantations. Great fertility of soil associated within the tropics
with insalubrity of atmosphere 27 — 33

"Banks" or broken strata. General horizontality of the surface.
Subsidences of the surface 33 — 35

Resemblance of the distant steppe to the ocean. Naked stony crust.
Tabular masses of syenite ; whether prejudicial to health 36 — 37

General views respecting the mountain systems of North and South
America, embracing the most recent information. Chains running
in a south-west and north-east direction in Brazil and in the

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 291

Atlantic portion of the United States of North America. The low
province of Chiquitos ; small swellings of the ground constitute
the division between the waters of the Guapore and Aguapehi in
15° and 17° S. lat, and between the river basins of the Orinoco
and the Kio Negro in 2° and 3° N. lat. . . . 37—39

Continuation of the chain of the Andes north of the isthmus of Panama
(through the Aztec country, where Popocatepetl, 16626 French, or
17720 English feet high, has very recently been again ascended by
Captain Stone) in the Sierra de las Grullas and the Rocky Moun-
tains. Excellent scientific investigations of Captain Fremont. The
longest barometric levelling ever made, showing a profile or vertical
section of the earth's surface through a space of 28° of longitude.
Culminating point of the route from the coast of the Atlantic to
the Pacific. " South Pass," south of the Wind River Mountains.
Swelling of the ground in the Great Basin. Long contested
existence of the Timpanogos Lake. Coast Chain, Maritime Alps,
or Sierra Nevada of California. Yolcanic eruptions. Falls of the

Columbia 39—50

•

General considerations on the contrasts shown by the spaces included
between the central chain (the Rocky Mountains) and the diverging
chains on the east and west (the Alleghanies and the Sierra Nevada
of California) ; hypsometric characters of the low eastern space,
which is only from 400 to 600 French, or 426 to 639 English feet
above the level of the sea, and of the arid uninhabited plain 5000
or 6000 (5330 to 6400 English) feet above the same level, called
the Great Basin. Sources of the Mississipi in the Lake of Istaca
according to Nicollet's highly meritorious researches. Buffalo
country j Gomara's assertion of buffaloes having been formerly
tamed in the northern part of Mexico .... 50 — 55

Retrospective view of the chain of the Andes from the Rocks of

292 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Diego Ramirez to Bekring's Strait. Long circulated errors re-
specting the heights of mountains in the eastern chain of the Andes
of Bolivia, especially* the Sorata and the Illimani. Four summits
of the western chain of Bolivia, which, according to Pentland's
latest determinations, are higher than the Chimborazo, but are not
equal in height to the still active volcano of Acongagua measured
byEitz-Roy 55—58

The African mountains of Harudsch-el-Abiad. Oases . 58 — 60

West winds on the coast of the Sahara. Accumulation of sea- weed ;
position of the great bank of Eucus from the time of Scylax of
Caryanda to that of Columbus, and to the present day . 60 — 67

Tibbos and Tuaricks. The camel and its distribution . 67 — 71

Mountain systems of the interior of Asia between Northern Siberia
and India. Erroneous belief in the existence of a single great
elevated plain called " Plateau de la Tartarie" . . 71—75

Chinese literature a rich source of orographic knowledge. Series of
elevations of different highlands. Desert of Gobi. Probable mean
height of Thibet. 75—85

Review of the mountain systems of the interior of Asia. Chains
running in the direction of the meridian ; the Ural, which separates
the low part of Europe from the low part of Asia, or divides into
two portions the Scythian "Europe of Pherecydes of Syros and of
Herodotus ; Bolor ; Khingan and the Chinese chains, which, near
the great bend in the direction of the Thibetian and Assamo-
Burmese river Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The elevations
which, between 66° and 77° E. long, from Greenwich, follow the
direction of meridians from Cape Comorin to the Icy Sea, alternate

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 293

like veins or dikes in which there are faults or displacements ; thus
the Ghauts, the Soliman Chain, the Paralasa, the Bolor, and the
Ural, succeed each other from south to north: the Bolor gave
occasion among the ancients to the idea of the Imaus, which
Agathodsemon supposed to be prolonged to the north into the low
basin of the lower Irtysch. Parallel chains running east and west ;
the Altai ; Thian-schan, with its active volcanoes at a distance of
1528 geographical miles from the Icy Sea at the mouth of the Obi,
and of 1512 geograpliical miles from the Indian Sea at the mouth
of the Ganges ; the Kuen-liin, recognised by Eratosthenes,
Marinus of Tyre, Ptolemy, and Cosmas Indicopleustes, as the
longest axis of elevation in the Old World, runs between 35^° and
36° of latitude in the direction of the diaphragm of Dicearchus.
Himalaya. The Kuen-liin, considered as an axis of elevation, may
be traced from the wall of China near Lung-tscheu through the
somewhat more northerly chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan,
through the mountain knot near the Lake called the " Starry Sea,"
through the Hindu-Coosh (the Parapanisus and Indian Caucasus of
the ancients), and through the chain of Demawend and the Persian
Elbourz, to Taurus in Lycia. Near the intersection of the Kuen-
liiii and the Bolor the correspondence of the direction of the axes
of elevation (east and west in the Kuen-liin and the Hindu-Coosh,
whereas that of the Himalaya is south-east and north-west) shows
that the Hindu-Coosh is a continuation of the Kuen-liin, and not
of the Himalaya. The point where the direction of the Himalaya
changes to south-east and north-west from having been east and
west, is about the 79th degree of east longitude from Paris (81° 22'
Greenwich). Next to the Dhawalagiri, it is not, as has been hitherto
supposed, the Jawahir which is the highest summit of the Himalaya ;
that rank belonging, according to the most recent intelligence
received from Dr. Joseph Hooker, to a mountain situated between
Boutan and Nepaul in the meridian of Sikkim, the Kinchinjinga :
the western summit of this mountain, which has been measured

294 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

by Colonel Waugh, director of the trigonometrical survey of India,
is 28178 feet, and its eastern summit 27826 feet high, according
to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Nov. 1848 :— The
mountain which is now supposed to be higher than the Dhawalagiri
is figured on the frontispiece of the magnificent work of Joseph
Hooker entitled " The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya, 1849."
— Determination of the lower limits of the snow-line on the northern
and southern declivities of the Himalaya ; its height being on an
average 3400 to 4600 Erench, or 3620 to 4900 English feet higher
on the northern face. New data on the subject from Hodgson.
Without this remarkable distribution of temperature in the upper
strata of the atmosphere, the mountain plains of Western Thibet
would be uninhabitable to the millions of human beings who now
dwell there. 85—101

The Hiong-nu, regarded by Deguignes and Johannes Miiller as a
tribe of Huns, appear rather to have been one of the widely scat-
tered tribes of the Turks of the Altai and Tang-nu mountains. The
Huns, whose name was known to Dionysius Perigetes, and who are
noticed by Ptolemy as Chuns (whence the later appellation of
Chunigard given to a country !), are a "Finnish race of the Ural
mountains 101—102

Eigures of the sun and of animals, and other signs carved on rocks
in the Sierra Parime, as well .as in North America, have often
been supposed to be writing ..... 102 — 104

Description of the cold mountain elevations between 11000 and
13000 (or 11720 and 13850 English) feet, which are distinguished
by the appellation of Paramos ; character of their vegetation.

104—106

Notices of the two groups of mountains (Pacaraima Mountains, and

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 295

the Sierra de Chiquitos) which separate the three plains of the
Lower Orinoco, the Amazons, and the Rio de la Plata . 106—107

On the dogs of South America ; both the aboriginal race and the
descendants of European dogs which have become wild. Sufferings
of cats when taken to elevations exceeding 13000 (] 3850 Eng.)
feet 107-112

The low tract of the Sahara, and its relations to the Atlas Mountains,
according to the latest information given by Daumas, Carette, and
Renou. The barometric measurements of Fournel make it appear
very probable that part of the North African desert is lower than
the level of the sea. Oasis of Biscara ; abundance of fossil salt in
zones or bauds running from south-west to north-east. Causes of
the nocturnal cold in the desert according to Melloni . 112 — 118

Notices of the River Wady Dra (l-6th longer than the Rhine, and
dry a large portion of the year), and of the country of Sheikh
Beirouk, a chief independent of the Emperor of Morocco, from
manuscript communications of the Naval Captain Count Bouet-
Villaumez. The mountains north of Cape Noun (a name used by
Edresi, in which, since the 15th century, an allusion to the negative
particle has been erroneously sought) attain 8600 (9166 English)
feet of elevation. . ,t ........ . . . 118—120

The vegetation of the tropical American Llanos consisting of grasses,
compared with the vegetation of the North Asiatic Steppes con-
sisting of herbaceous plants. In the last-named Steppes, and
especially the more fertile among them, a pleasing effect is produced
in spring by small snow-white and red-flowering Rosacese, Amygda-
lese, species of Astragalus, Crown Imperials, Cypripedias, and
Tulips. Contrast with the desolate salt Steppes full of Cheno-
podiacese, species of Salsola and Atriplex. Considerations on the

296 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. 1.

relative numbers of the prevailing families of plants. The plains
adjoining the Icy Sea, north of the limit determined by Admiral
Wrangel as that of the growth of Coniferse and Amentacese, are the
domain of cryptogamous plants. Aspect and physiognomy of the
Tundras, where the soil, which is perpetually frozen, is covered
either with a thick coating of Sphagnum and other mosses, or with
the snow-white Cenomyce and Stereocaulon paschale . 120 — 123

Principal causes of the very different distribution of temperature in
the European and American Continents. Direction and curvature
of the isothermal lines, or lines of equal temperature, for the entire
year, for the winter, and for the summer . . . 123—136

Are there any grounds for believing that America emerged later than
the Old Continent from the chaotic watery covering? . 136 — 139

Thermic comparison of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in
high latitudes . 139—143

Apparent connection of the African sea of sand with those of Persia,
Kerman, Beloochistan, and the interior of Asia. On the western
part of Mount Atlas, and the connection of purely mythical ideas
with geographical traditions. Indistinct allusions to igneous erup-
tions. Triton Lake. Crater-like forms of a locality south of
Hanno's " Bay of the Gorilla Apes." Singular description of the
"hollow Atlas" from the Dialexes of Marinus Tyrius . 143—149

Notices respecting the Mountains of the Moon (Djebel al-Komr) in
the interior of Africa by Reinaud, Beke, and Ayrton. Werne's
instructive notice of the second expedition undertaken by the orders
of Mehemet Ali. The Abyssinian mountains, which rise, according
to Hiippell, almost to the height of Mont Blanc. The most
ancient notice of snow between the tropics contained in the Inscrip-

SUMMARY OK THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 297

tion of Adulis, which is somewhat more modern than Juba. High
mountains which, between 6° and 4° of north latitude, and still
more to the south, approach the Bahr el-Abiad. A considerable
swelling of the ground divides the White Nile from the basin of
the Goschop. Line of separation between the waters which flow
to the Mediterranean and those which flow to the Indian Ocean
according to Carl Zimmermann's map. Lupata Chain according
to the instructive researches of Wilhelm Peters . . 149 — 158

Oceanic currents. In the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean the
waters are impelled in a true revolving current. That the first
impulse which causes the Gulf Stream is to be sought at the
southern extremity of Africa, was already known to Sir Humphry
Gilbert in 1560. Influence of the Gulf Stream on the climate of
Scandinavia. How it contributed to the discovery of America.
Instances of Esquimaux who, aided by the returning eastward
flowing portion of the warm Gulf Stream, and by north-west winds
arrived on the coasts of Europe. Such a case related by Cornelius
Nepos and Pomponius Mela (of Indians given by a king of the
Boii to Quintus Metellus Celer, Proconsul of Gaul) ; others in the
time of the Othos and of Frederic Barbarossa, of Columbus and of
Cardinal Bembo. Again, in the years 1682 and 1684 natives of
Greenland appeared in the Orkneys .... 159 — 165

Operation of lichens and other Cryptogamia in the cold and temperate
zones in preparing the way for the more rapid establishment of
larger phsenogamous plants. Within the tropics lichens are often
replaced in this respect by succulent plants. Milk-yielding animals
of the New Continent; the Lama, the Alpaca, the Guanaco.

165—169

Cultivation of farinaceous grasses 169 — 173

On the earliest population of America .... 173 — 174

298 SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

The coast nation of the Guaranis (Warraus), and the Mauritia palm
of the coasts, according to the accounts given by Bembo in the
Histories Venetae, and those of Raleigh, Hillhouse, and Robert and
Richard Schomburgk 174—182

Phenomena which long-continued drought produces in the Steppe ;
sand-spouts, hot winds (Mirage) ; awakening of crocodiles and
tortoises from long summer sleep .... 182 — 190

Otomacs. General considerations on the practice of earth-eating
among particular nations or tribes. Clays and earths containing
Infusoria 190—196

Figures graven on rocks throughout a zone running from east to west,
and extending from the Rupunuri, Essequibo, and the Pacaraima
Mountains, to Caycara and the wildernesses of the Cassiquiare.
Earliest notice (April 1749) of these traces of former civilization
in the manuscript account of the travels of the surgeon Nicolas
Hortsmann of Hildesheim, found among D'Anville's papers.

196—203

The vegetable poison Curare or Ourari .... 203 — 204

Cataracts of the Orinoco-^. 207 to p. 231.

The Orinoco ; general view of its course. Ideas excited in Columbus
on seeing its embouchure. Its unknown sources are east of the
Mountain of Duida and the groves of Bertholletia. Causes of the
principal bends of the river . " . . , . . 207—219

The falls or rapids ; Raudal of Maypures enclosed by four streams.
Former state of the district. Island-like form of the rocks Keri
and Oco. Grandeur of the view obtained on descending the hill of
Manimi, where a foaming river-surface of four miles in extent pre-
sents itself at once to the eye. Iron-black masses of rock rise like

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 299

castles from the bed of the river ; the summits of the lofty palm
trees pierce through the cloud of spray and vapour . 219—226

Raudal of Atures ; numerous islands ; rocky dikes connecting one
island with another, and the resort of pugnacious golden Pipras.
Parts of the bed of the river at the cataracts are dry, from the
waters having found a passage by subterranean channels. We
visited the rocks at the closing in of night and during storm and
heavy rain. Unsuspected proximity of crocodiles . . 226 — 227

Celebrated cave of Ataruipe, the sepulchral vault of an extinct
nation 227—231

Scientific Elucidations and Additions— -p. 233 to p. 255.

The river-cow (Trichecus manati) lives in the sea at the place where,
in the Gulf of Xagua, on the south coast of the Island of Cuba,
springs of fresh water break forth .... 233—234

Geographical discussion on the sources of the Orinoco . 236—241

The Bertholletia, a Lecythidea, a remarkable example of highly deve-
loped organization. Stem of an Arundinarea sixteen to seventeen
feet long from knot to knot 241—243

On the myth or fable of the Lake of Parime . . . 243—254

The Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest — p. 259 to p. 272.

Difference between languages in respect to their richness in well-
defined expressions for characterising natural phenomena, such as
the state of vegetation, the forms of plants, the outlines and group-
ing of clouds, the appearance of the surface of the ground, and the
forms of rocks and mountains. Loss which languages suffer by the
disuse of such words, or by their signification becoming impaired.

300 SILUMAKY OP THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

The misinterpretation of a Spanish word, " Monte," has caused the
undue extension or introduction of mountains in maps. Primeval
Forest ; frequent abuse of the term. Absence of the uniformity
•which is produced by the association of the same kinds of trees,
characteristic of tropical forests. Causes of the impenetrability of
forests between the tropics ; the twining plants, Lianes, often form
only a small portion of the Underwood. . . . 259 — 266

Appearance of the Rio Apure in the lower part of its course. Margin
of the forest fenced like a garden by a low hedge of Sauso (Her-
mesia). The wild animals of the forest lead their young to the
river through small openings in this hedge. Flocks of large water-
hogs or Cavies (Capybara). Fresh-water dolphins . 266 — 269

Wild cries of animals resound throughout the forest. Cause of the
nocturnal uproar. . , . . . 269—271

Contrast with the stillness which reigns during the noon-tide hours
on days of more than usual heat in the torrid zone. Description
of the narrows of the Orinoco at Baraguan. Humming and
fluttering of insects. Life stirs audibly in every bush, in the clefts
of the bark of trees, and 'in .the earth undermined and furrowed by
Hymenopterous insects . . . . . . 271 — 272

Scientific Elucidations an$ Additions— •$- 273 to p. 275.
Characteristic terms in Arabic and Persian descriptive of the surface
of the ground (Steppes, grassy plains, deserts, &c.) Richness of
the old Castilian idiom in words expressive of the form of mountains.
Fresh-water skates and dolphins. In the great rivers of both
continents some organic sea-forms are repeated. American noc-
turnal monkeys, the three-striped Douroucouli of the Cassiquiare.

273—275

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 801

Hypsometric Addendc^—^. 277 to p. 285.

Pentland's measurements in the eastern mountain chain of Bolivia.
Height of the volcano of Aconcagua according to Fitzroy and
Darwin. Western mountain chain of Bolivia . . 277 — 279

Mountain systems of North America. Rocky Mountains and the
Snowy Chain (Sierra Nevada) of California. Laguna de Timpanogos.

279-283

Hypsometrical profile of the Highland of Mexico from the city of
Mexico to Santa Ee . . 283—285

END OF VOL. I.

Wilson and Ogilvy, Printers, 57, Skinner Street, Rnowhill, Londat,

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